


Swap

by JaneSkazki



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 76,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26289970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneSkazki/pseuds/JaneSkazki
Summary: This was published originally as a (reverent intake of breath) paper zine by Bill Hupe. I think it has long been out of print, so I hope I'm not treading on any toes by making it available on line. I will, of course, remove it from AO3 if anyone tells me it shouldn't be here.The zine was immeasurably enhanced by artwork by Teegar. (Yes, that's a hint...)If you REALLY hate SPOILERS, please avoid reading puertoricansuperman's lovely comment before you read the story.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was published originally as a (reverent intake of breath) paper zine by Bill Hupe. I think it has long been out of print, so I hope I'm not treading on any toes by making it available on line. I will, of course, remove it from AO3 if anyone tells me it shouldn't be here.  
> The zine was immeasurably enhanced by artwork by Teegar. (Yes, that's a hint...)
> 
> If you REALLY hate SPOILERS, please avoid reading puertoricansuperman's lovely comment before you read the story.

Chapter 1

“Get down!” Even as he shouted, Kirk threw himself at the ensign, bringing them both crashing to the hard-packed earth under the wall. Before Chekov could draw breath he was being exhorted to drag the wounded Ambassador under the cover of the abandoned wagon and return fire. 

“But they’ve gone, Captain. I saw them. They were keeping low in the shadows under the bank there.”

Kirk was ripping the Ambassador’s jacket open, feeling for a heartbeat in the pulped flesh.

“I have to get that communicator. If he’s not aboard in a couple of minutes, it’ll be too late. I want covering fire…”

Chekov looked hopelessly at the primitive machine gun. Someone had clearly used it as a club, leaving the sights twisted over to one side. “I might hit someone, Captain.”

“That, Mister Chekov, is the idea, although it’s also perhaps a little too much to hope for. It’ll be the first thing anyone’s done right all day if you do.”

The criticism was clearly aimed at Kirk himself as much as his companion.

“But I don’t think they’re armed, the ones who are left.”

Kirk snatched the weapon from him and held it up above the wagon. There was an immediate fusillade of gun fire.

“Yes, but…”

“I’ll count to three and then I’ll go. Fire over my head, but low, and if any of them show themselves, aim for their weapons, or their legs. I don’t want to kill anyone, but I don’t want them to know that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk began to wriggle across the most exposed section of his difficult dash to the communicator and the body of Lieutenant Berg, relying on the deep shadow and the knee high, knife-edged grass to give him a little cover. He reached the lip of the dry moat. Chekov heard, precisely muted for his ears only, “…two, three,” and Kirk was up and running. 

Chekov was firing simultaneously, although, as he’d expected, there was no answering fire. In the moat, Kirk was invisible to the men on the tower behind them and he was certain there had only ever been two gunmen in the clump of trees just beyond Berg’s body. He’d seen them leave. He was sure. But he still fired. He still obeyed Kirk’s orders. The captain had been right too often for Chekov to disobey him now.

Then, just as Kirk threw himself headlong at the bloody heap which was Lieutenant Berg, someone stood up among the trailing yellow fronds of the trees. Chekov moved his gun the necessary fraction of a centimetre and continued firing. The figure disappeared, the whole tree shaking as, presumably, whoever it was clutched at the branches to control his fall. Then the communicator came wheeling through the air and landed precisely at Chekov’s feet. Still firing, he scooped it up and flicked it open.

“Mister Scott, is the transporter functional?”

“Aye, Mister Chekov.”

“The Ambassador’s injured. Take him first. He’s here with me…” The man was engulfed in the familiar shimmer even as Chekov spoke. “…And the captain is…”

A cry from above made Chekov swing round with the gun towards the wall behind him. It exploded outwards and he was sent staggering backwards into the moat and oblivion.

***

“Ensign, can you hear me?” 

He could, and when he carefully opened his eyes, he could see Kirk as well. The captain was filthy and his face was bruised, as if he’d only been captured after a prolonged and hard fought struggle. Beyond Kirk was a wall of glistening, rough hewn stone, with iron rings set into it. These people really were taking the dungeons and castles act a little seriously, Chekov thought. But at least they hadn’t chained their prisoners to anything for the moment. The two of them were simply lying on clean straw in a cell that was lit faintly by a narrow window twenty feet or more above their heads. 

He sat up. “Where are we, Captain? What happened?”

“Getting a solid wall behind us was a good idea, but unfortunately that bit of wall wasn’t so solid. I assume it was a siege defence. Parts of the castle walls must be comparatively thin. They could burst out and attack a besieging force.”

“But we weren’t attacking the people in the castle…”

“No. We weren’t. They were coming out to stop the Marquis catching us.”

That surprised Chekov too. The Duke of Eaye, the inhabitant of this monstrous heap of decaying masonry, had appeared content to sit in his draughty roost and hurl insults at every other participant in the little local difficulty in which the Enterprise was currently involved.

“His guest rooms aren’t very comfortable,” the ensign said pointedly.

“I don’t think that just because he doesn’t want the Marquis to have us, that necessarily means he’s on our side.”

“Oh.”

“But you did get the Ambassador away. I just hope he made it.”

Chekov felt through his hair cautiously to pin down the exact source of the pains that were knifing through his skull. 

“One of them hit you with the butt of his rifle. You’ve been unconscious for about twenty minutes.” 

There was a small ridged bruise and a little blood to support the captain’s version of events. Chekov groaned. “Did they say anything before they put us in here?”

“No. Just dragged us in and banged us up. I can’t see any way out so you may as well relax.”

Despite that, the ensign made a quick mental tour of their prison. The floor was solid, dry earth. The chamber was circular and tall, its upper reaches lost in shadow. The single window, inaccessible and too small to climb through anyway, faced south-east, since the early morning sun was striking directly through it. The only door was wood, black with age, and you could tell it was solid by the way generations of prisoners had carved their marks into it. Apart from the proper black hinges, as long as a man’s arm, and nail heads as big as saucers, it boasted a large, picture book keyhole.

“Are you thirsty?” That was the only remaining feature of the cell, a cracked stoneware jug. There wasn’t, Chekov noted bitterly, any sign of an ensuite bathroom. He accepted a drink, checking first for drowned vermin. The water was clean, even tasting faintly of chlorine.

“It could be worse,” Kirk said, encouragingly.

Chekov was spared having to make a cheerful response by the sound of a key tripping the wards of the lock from the other side of the door. It creaked open in a most satisfactory manner and a gaoler, wearing the traditional leather jerkin and unwashed black hair of his profession, ventured into the dungeon to sneer at his prisoners. He nodded at Kirk and a couple of henchmen hurried forward to manacle the captain before dragging him to his feet. Kirk smiled at Chekov. “I expect I’ll be back. Why don’t you get some rest? You didn’t sleep too well last night.”

And with that, he was marched away between the two six-foot prize-fighters. The gaoler remained. “You know what the Duke is going to have done to you, don’t you?”

“No. What?”

“You’ll be flayed alive. It’s done with very sharp knives, very slowly, so your skin comes off in one piece. You might live for up to three days afterwards…if you’re strong. You don’t look particularly strong. I reckon you might last a day and a half. Then they send your skin home to your family. The Duke still has his grandfather’s skin. Why don’t you take your captain’s advice and get some sleep? Pleasant dreams.”

About an hour later, sixty uncomfortable minutes, half of which Chekov had spent telling himself that the man was probably just trying to frighten him, and the other half admitting that the bastard had succeeded, they returned for the ensign.

The manacles were black and cold, and fitted close round his wrists as if they’d been made for him. The gaoler’s two assistants took an arm each and marched him along a lamp lit corridor just wide enough for the three of them, through another impressive antique door and into a courtyard. The inner walls of the castle, peppered with windows, reared so high above Chekov that he felt a wave of vertigo when he tipped his head back to see the distant rectangle of grey-blue sky. A short flight of stone steps led up into a large hall, hung with tapestries and scented with wood-smoke although no fire burnt at present in the massive fire place beneath the hooded chimney piece. On a raised dais at the far end, two bodies were laid out. Chekov was marched over to a group of natives just in front of the dais. A tall, full-bearded man, with flaming red hair, bright blue tunic and leggings, and an impressive broad-sword hanging from his belt, turned to inspect the new arrival. Chekov’s attention was caught instead by another figure, a woman, barely that, a girl, kneeling beside one of the two draped corpses. She was weeping silently and he had the awful feeling that he’d killed whomever she was mourning.

“You, what’s your name?”

“Pavel, Andrei’s son.” He gave it in the local form appropriate to an officer, lifting the small local religious symbol which he was wearing on a leather thong round his neck and touching it to his lips in the approved manner. Thus he was calling down a blessing on the man he addressed.

“You were firing this weapon,” the man picked up the battered machine gun and waved it in front of him, “into the stand of willows by the moat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because our enemies were taking shelter there. And my captain needed to recover something from the body of our companion. I was providing covering fire.”

He couldn’t see Kirk anywhere in the hall, although he didn’t dare to turn around and look behind him among the group of soldiers who were standing by. 

“He’s lying. They came here as your enemies, Eaye, and this is the proof. Join us to defeat them.”

These words came from the lips of a tall man, clad in body armour of chain mail and leather. He had removed his helmet, revealing raven black hair in sweat dampened ringlets. His short cape was lemon yellow, the colour of the Marquis, but he wore also a parley stripe, a long piece of white fabric indicating that he was currently employed in carrying messages between the opposing factions and therefore entitled to safe conduct. 

“We aren’t your enemies,” Chekov insisted. “We aren’t anyone’s enemies. The Ambassador came at the Council’s request…”

“The Council!” The Duke threw back his head and laughed bitterly. “What are they to us, or we to them?”

The Marquis’ man also was smiling ironically. “You cannot be allies of the Council and friends to the people, Pavel Andrei’s son.”

“One of your people was also killed,” the Duke continued. “What do you wish us to do with the body?” He leaned forward and twitched the length of blue fabric away from Lieutenant Berg. Someone had combed her long, flaxen hair and washed her face, but no one had closed her blue eyes. She appeared quite at peace, apart from her unforgiving stare.

Chekov looked at her, suddenly unable to accept that she was dead. They’d risked their lives to save the Ambassador, maybe if they’d acted soon enough, McCoy could have done something for Susanna too. “May I…” He gestured towards the body, and the Duke nodded. The ensign knelt down beside his comrade and closed her eyes gently with the tips of his fingers. The short chain between his wrists knocked against her face. “Oh…” He pulled his hands apart, so that it wouldn’t disturb her again. Then he saw the blood soaked into her native costume, the size of the rip in her tunic, and realised that McCoy would have been helpless here.

“We return the bodies of our shipmates to their families if possible.” 

The Duke smiled. “And if it is not possible?”

“We bury them.”

This time the Duke nodded approvingly. “It shall be so for your comrade and you will live long enough to carry out whatever rites your traditions demand.”

It occurred to Chekov that now might be the time to subscribe to a minority faith which demanded a twenty-year graveside vigil. But where was Kirk? Why weren’t they asking him about Berg? It wasn’t as if they were primitives who didn’t understand the job of a Starship captain.

“Where is Captain Kirk?”

“He’s being questioned. There has been murder done here and I do not trust his version of the events which caused it.”

“Murder?” Chekov stood up again. “We were defending ourselves. We very much regret any casualties but…”

“The man who died was unarmed. That is murder, not battle…by our custom, at least.”

“We came under fire, from those trees…”

“He bore no weapons. I doubt if you could see him clearly, among the trees. But he bore no weapons. He was pa’hoot, one who has forsworn weapons for the duration of Meh’swan.”

“But I couldn’t tell. We’d been fired on from that point…”

“You are not being questioned here. It is your captain who bears responsibility.”

“But I know what happened…”

“Silence.” The leader turned away, the interview clearly over.

“Duke!” 

“You’ll get your chance to answer questions.” The gaoler had returned, his bunch of keys hanging from his gnarled hands. “Don’t be in such a hurry.”

Chekov was taken back to his cell arriving simultaneously with a tray containing two tall beakers of the local ale, recognisable by its hoppy odour, and two chunks of bread. There was cheese, too, and the native version of apples, flatter and more waxy than the everyday Terran variety.

The girl carrying it was smiling, but her greeting was for one of the guards, who snatched a quick kiss from her while the gaoler’s back was turned. Chekov was released from his chains and pushed into the cell, while the tray was put on the floor. Then the door creaked shut again. It was dark. The sun apparently only entered the dungeon for an hour or so each day and now it had passed on. He waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness then realised that he could hear someone, halfway between breathing and groaning. “Captain? Captain Kirk?”

“Chekov?” 

He almost fell over Kirk in his haste to find him. “Have they hurt you? Can I do anything?”

“No. I’m just a bit bruised. Is there any of that water left?”

The ensign felt cautiously for the jug. “Yes. Or there’s beer…”

“Just water, for the moment. You can have the beer.” 

Chekov carefully raised Kirk’s head and helped him to drink from the chipped rim of the jug. In the gloom he couldn’t see how bad the captain’s injuries were but the smothered gasp that escaped as Kirk lay down again was some indication that all was not well. 

“Where were you?” Kirk asked, after a moment.

“I think the Duke wanted to see me, just see me. He wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. One of his men was killed. He seems to think we did something wrong, broke some taboo, or…”

“I told them it wasn’t your fault. You were just obeying my orders. I’m not sure how much ice that’s going to cut. I’m sorry.”

There didn’t seem to be an answer to that. Chekov decided that even if he wasn’t hungry now, he didn’t know when he’d next have a chance to eat, so he returned to the tray. When he put his hand out to pick up the bread, he touched something warm and furry that had got there first. He yelped.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Uh, nothing, Captain.” Now he was torn between not wanting to eat the food at all, and the certainty that he’d want it less later, even supposing there was any left.

“Are you hungry, sir?”

“Chekov, I’m not really interested in anything but trying to lie very still and, if I can, going to sleep. If you’re hungry, you’re welcome.”

He decided he wasn’t hungry, on balance. He found a bit of wall that didn’t have too many bumps in it and leaned against it. It was cold, as was the floor, but he didn’t fancy disturbing the straw to gather up a cushion, for fear of what might crawl out of it. The only sounds were a few quiet rustles, the murmur of voices outside the door and Kirk’s laboured breathing, evening out as the captain dozed off. Chekov was impressed that the captain could sleep now, saving his energies for later, when there was some realistic prospect of escape. Then after five minutes he realised he wasn’t impressed at all. He was profoundly irritated. He felt like kicking Kirk and rousing him back to wakefulness, just so that he would have someone to talk to. He was beginning to feel not merely tired, hungry, cold and worried, but also neglected. What had the captain meant, he was sorry? How much did he know of what the Duke planned to do with his prisoners? 

The day dragged on with no reference point to mark its progress. Along with their weapons, and all but one communicator, they’d left timepieces behind. Their mission was supposed to be “discrete". The clothes they wore were accurate reproductions of the native costume: long, wide trousers, caught in with criss-crossed laces, padded tunics over generous shirts, everything fastened with carved bone buttons and fiddly loops, mostly in inaccessible places. Even the boots had buttons, breaking your nails if they were long enough to be useful, slipping out of your grasp if they weren’t. Uhura had watched Chekov cursing the stiff leather and shiny ivory, then produced a slender little instrument that had them fastened almost as quickly as his eyes could follow. 

“What is that?”

“A button hook. It’s antique and you can’t take it with you. But I bet you’ll find they already have them.”

“A button hook. Right.”

Kirk had arrived in the transporter room, his boots still only half-fastened. He fixed Chekov with a glare. “All right, I’m not going to bother to ask how you did it. You can do these up.” He pointed to his feet.

Chekov shrugged. “I’m sorry, Captain. Uhura did them for me.”

“I’m not going to make a habit of this, Captain,” the lieutenant smiled. Then she knelt down and finished the task. “You’ll have to sleep with your boots on.”

Kirk had caught her hand and was examining the little device. “Can’t we borrow this?”

“I’m sure someone down there will sell you one.”

Chekov blushed in the dark as he replayed the conversation to himself. Uhura had then leaned over to him and whispered, “But neither of you boys are going to have to take your own boots off tonight, if I know you.” She’d smiled and slipped the little piece of metal into his hand.

He didn’t know why she played this game, pretending he was the Lothario of the Enterprise. He wriggled uncomfortably on the hard floor. Only one in four of the crew was female. In the year since he’d been aboard, there had been…well, there hadn’t been a lot of romance. It sometimes seemed the vast majority of them were saving themselves on the off-chance that they’d get marooned somewhere with the captain, or his first officer, or, incomprehensibly to Chekov, Doctor McCoy. Worse, they’d cast Chekov in the role of younger brother, to be admitted to their occasional hen parties, on the basis that what they were talking about, comparing one man with another, swapping experiences, was nothing they might ever want to do with him. Even the women who were younger than him seemed older, and more experienced, and vastly more sophisticated. He worried occasionally that they suspected him of being homosexual, since he couldn’t think of any other reason for their cheerful frankness in his presence. And all the time, Uhura kept up her make believe, that he was irresistible, that no woman could trust herself if she was so fortunate as to be left alone with the ensign. Yet she said nothing to, or about, Sulu, who seemed to have a succession of friendly liaisons — not romances; they never seemed to involve the necessary element of uncertainty and heartache, either as they began or when they ended.

“Chekov?”

“Yes, Captain?”

The young man, Kirk thought worriedly, was sounding distinctly glum. “If you can think of a way out of here by nightfall, I’ll…” He paused. This was only an intellectual game. He was fairly sure there wasn’t a way out. “I’ll make you First Officer next time Mister Spock goes on leave.”

“If you are so certain there is no way out of here, I might as well not try.” He meant it to come out as a lighthearted retort, but it sounded bitter. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean…”

“No, I know. We do seem to be in rather deep trouble. You didn’t get any clues as to why Eaye suddenly decided to come out of his lair, did you?”

“He had an envoy from the Marquis with him. He said something about the Council… what are they to him, or he to them…something like that. The Marquis’ man said that you couldn’t be allies of the Council, and friends of the people. Then he said that we had come as the Duke’s enemies, and the Duke should join the Marquis to defeat us. That was about it. He also… He wanted to know what we wanted done with Lieutenant Berg’s body.”

“What did you say?”

“That we would like to return it to her family, and if that wasn’t possible, to bury it. And he said, he’d let us live long enough to do it.”

Chekov badly wanted to ask Kirk what he knew, what had been said to him, but didn’t feel it was his place to ask. 

“Is there any food left?”

Chekov glanced at the tray and a pair of pale yellow eyes glinted at him. “I think there are rats in here, Captain.”

“Oh.”

“By out of here, do you mean out of this particular place or back up to the ship?”

“Well, I’ve never been very fond of rats.” As far as Kirk could discern in the gloom, Chekov had got down on his hands and knees and was trying to peer under the door. “But if we let them have all the food, you might get out under there eventually.”

Chekov sat back on his haunches. “I don’t think there’s a guard out there any longer.”

“So, if we can batter the door down without attracting attention…”

“How badly hurt are you? Can you run? Or fight?”

“You get us out of here, Mister Chekov, and I’ll do whatever’s necessary.”

The ensign stood up. Kirk could only tell that he was still occupied by a muffled scratching and clicking. One of the clicks was more pronounced then suddenly everything went quiet. Kirk climbed to his feet, his muscles protesting against both the ill treatment they’d received earlier and the cold that had eaten into them while he lay on the floor. He put a hand on Chekov’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you could pick locks. What are you using?”

“Uhura’s button hook.”

“Remind me to promote her.”

“But it was my uncle Fyodor who taught me how to use it.”

“I’ll promote him too.” Another satisfying clunk announced that one more of the wards had been dealt with. 

“Quiet.” 

The sound of a door slamming echoed down the corridor. Kirk felt the ensign bend down quickly then Chekov was pushing him away from the door, back to his previous place in the straw. A moment later the door was opening and the cell filled with smoky yellow light from a lantern. 

“Chain them up, lads.”

This time they were both manacled. The gaoler led the way down the corridor, throwing a vast black shadow behind him in which the prisoners walked. The hall was packed out with men and women, all wearing the Duke’s colour, a very pale blue, somewhere in their costume. They parted soundlessly to let the Starfleet officers through.

On the dais the Duke sat on a carved stool, surrounded by his doughtiest fighters. The flames in the fireplace flickered off their weapons and reflected in the screens of the computer terminals set into the wall behind the Duke.

“Captain Kirk, you know that I had no wish to be involved in your dispute with the Marquis and the Council.”

Kirk mustered as much dignity as he could, chained and dishevelled.

“Yes.”

“Even though you bought that dispute to the very foot of my castle walls, I was content to look with unseeing eyes on your foolishness. However, I cannot ignore the wilful slaughter of one of my place men.”

“Sir…”

Kirk shot Chekov a look that clearly said he’d be stencilling serial numbers on micro-components for the rest of his five year commission if he didn’t shut up, now.

“I regret what happened, and I take full responsibility for it. My officer was providing covering fire, on my instructions, while I checked on the condition of another of our party and retrieved vital equipment.”

“You have something to say?” The Duke had turned his gaze on Chekov.

“No, sir.”

“But you confirm that that is what happened?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. The New Law demands the death penalty for murder. Since Rae, Em’s son was unarmed, this is murder. Captain Kirk, you will be executed at midnight tonight.”

Kirk didn’t let himself look at Chekov. “May I speak to my second-in-command?”

“No. We don’t want you transporting out between our fingers, Captain. You may of course send a message.”

Now Kirk did turn to the ensign, gesturing towards him as well as his manacled wrists would allow. “You’ll let him go?”

“Naturally. He is not accused of any crime.” 

Chekov was too keyed up to care that he’d just been reprieved. He couldn’t imagine — no, he could imagine, but it was too appalling to dwell on it — transporting back to the Enterprise alone.

He couldn’t even bear to look at his captain. Instead he stared straight forward and found himself locking eyes with one of Eaye’s warriors, his tenants, a tall man in late middle age, disfigured by a scar that divided his face horizontally in two. He read some desperate emotion in the pale blue eyes, before he tore his attention away, to find that someone was unlocking the cuffs at his wrists.

“The New Law doesn’t run here, my lord.”

The Duke closed his eyes for a moment then turned to the scarred man. “We’re not barbarians, Em. What do you want?”

“I have lost my son, who would have been the light of my old age. My daughter has lost a husband, who should have provided for her. Are we to receive nothing, under your New Law?”

Kirk breathed again. It seemed the man wanted compensation, rather than revenge.

“What do you want?” Eaye repeated stonily.

“I want what I’ve lost. The New Law is blood, not justice. What does it matter to me if the Starship captain dies?”

“The Old Law wasn’t made for these times.”

“Law is law. Justice doesn’t change. If the law doesn’t suit you, it is you who are awry.” Em unbuckled his sword belt and laid his weapon down at his lord’s feet. The gesture didn’t mean anything to Kirk, but he could feel the tension in the great room twisting into tighter knots.

“He is not one of us, Em. Think what you are asking.”

“I am asking a life for a life. What is amiss with that?”

“Take the captain out.”

Kirk couldn’t stop himself struggling as he was dragged away. He wanted to get to the man Em, to appeal to him, not to make Chekov pay for other people’s mistakes, but no one was going to listen. Chekov stood immobile, not sure to what extent he could influence what was happening, not sure how much he wanted to. He had an uneasy feeling that whatever Kirk felt about it, Starfleet would rather have the captain back safely than a replaceable ensign.

The Duke stepped down off the dais into the crowd and came over to Chekov, putting a surprisingly friendly hand on his shoulder. “Come with me, Pavel, Andrei’s son. We should talk.”

He turned his back and Chekov found that he was free to obey or not as he pleased. The crowd in the hall began to talk amongst themselves. Some of them glanced curiously at the stranger who followed their leader to the narrow door in the corner of the hall. Eaye led the way up a twisting stair to a small room with the table ready laid for a meal. “Sit down.” The Duke pointed to a couple of stools either side of a brazier of glowing coals. Chekov did as he was directed and found that Em had taken the other seat. Eaye leaned against the wall and tugged at his red beard.

“You are within your rights, Em.”

“I know,” the older man replied curtly. Chekov just sat silent, waiting to see what fate was going to deal him.

“If he were one of mine, I’d give him to you.” 

“It is up to you. I don’t see what else you have to consider.”

“It will make a mockery of both Old Law and New, but if you insist, I’m bound by what you want. I won’t be held responsible for the consequences. So long as you understand that and so long as he agrees.”

They both turned to look at Chekov. “I don’t understand.”

Eaye shrugged, a dismissive, I-told-you-so gesture. Em gave him a very serious, considering stare. “The New Law demands a death for a death. Your captain will die because you killed an unarmed man, while following his orders.”

“Yes,” Chekov nodded uncertainly.

“The Old Law, a better law, made by people who wanted to mend what was wrong, not share out equal misery, proposes a life for a life. Your life for that of my son.”

“And that means my life is forfeit to you, or… what does it mean?”

“It means that you give up your life, as it is now, and take on all the duties and responsibilities of my son. You live his life instead of your own.”

“And what about Captain Kirk?”

“The Old Law has no quarrel with your captain. It holds you responsible for your own actions.”

Chekov did some rapid calculations. There was no possibility that Mister Spock would intervene before midnight. These people were aware enough of the workings of transporters and communicators to ensure that he had no chance to send a message before Kirk was killed, however willing they were to release him afterwards. It appeared that Em had no immediate plans to kill him, although he could imagine that the scenario the man proposed contained ample opportunities for the bereaved to inflict drawn out revenge on the guilty party. It sounded like some form of slavery, but he could take that, at least for long enough for Kirk to rescue him.

“I’ll do it.”

Eaye raised his overgrown ginger eyebrows. “To protect your captain?”

“Yes.”

“Call your daughter, my friend.” Em silently got to his feet and disappeared through the door, only to reappear a moment later. The Duke continued smoothly. “Pavel, Andrei’s son, if you do this, he won’t be your captain any longer. I will be your lord. If you can’t understand that, this won’t work.”

“I don’t suppose I understand any of this.”

“The admission of ignorance is the best starting place for learning. How much do you know of our world?”

“Uh, Keera III is a pre-atomic industrialised society, with a uniform, feudal structure, in which law, economic power and social responsibility are devolved through a network of territorial overlords and their tenants. It was occupied by the Klingons, who were interested in exploiting mineral resources and the availability of cheap, disciplined labour for processing those resources. When Federation advances in the area isolated Keera from the Empire, the Klingons withdrew and there was some social breakdown. The Federation is now attempting to assist in stabilising the situation.”

Chekov, at the end of this recital, glanced up warily at Eaye, suspicious that this might not be quite how things appeared from the inside. In particular, it had struck the ensign, since he’d been here, that it wasn’t only the obvious collaborators who appeared to regret the abrupt departure of the Klingons.

“Well, that is one way of looking at it.” 

Before Chekov could decide whether the man was amused or irritated by his potted history of Keera, he was distracted by the arrival of the young woman he had seen earlier in the hall. She nodded gravely at the two older men then sat down on the stool that Em had vacated, her eyes fastened coldly on the ensign. He found himself wanting to move away from her.

“Liiz, do you know what your father proposes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And it is agreeable to you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Very well. Stand up, Pavel.” 

Chekov obeyed uncertainly, telling himself that he was only buying time and, if Kirk’s life was saved, the price wasn’t too high.

“Now, bring me a cup from the table.”

He did it like an automaton. Eaye took a small knife from a desk behind where he stood and knicked the base of his thumb, catching the drops of blood that welled up from the cut in the goblet. Then he took it back to the table himself and poured a little wine into it. He offered it to the ensign but pulled it back when Chekov moved to take it. “Be sure, before you do this. It’s only your Captain’s life. This touches your immortal soul. Will you be Em’s, your father’s, faithful son and my tenant in your turn?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Drink it then.”

He raised the cup to his lips but stopped before he tasted its contents. Whatever his views on this society, this was clearly a solemn oath in their eyes and he had no intention of keeping it. He returned the cup to the table. “I can’t promise that. I shouldn’t have…”

Liiz was smiling, a faint, scoffing smile. Eaye also seemed amused. “Why not? Your captain will walk free tonight…”

“I can’t promise loyalty to you. I already owe it to someone else.”

“To your captain, who will die at midnight if you don’t.”

“I thought…”

“Yes?”

“I thought you meant some sort of slavery, to keep me prisoner…”

“What hour is it, Em?”

“It wants a twelth until midnight, my lord.”

“I like your reluctance better than I would a ready promise, Pavel, Andrei’s son. This isn’t the easy way out, as you realise now.” 

Eaye went over to the door himself and yelled something down the stairs. He left the door open when he came back in and a moment later the gaoler appeared. “Yes, my lord Duke?”

“Xeris, describe to this young man how we intend to execute the Starship captain.”

“Not in front of the young lady, if you don’t mind, my lord, and her so newly widowed.”

“I don’t mind at all, Xeris. He did murder my husband.” 

“That’s true, Mistress Liiz. Actually, I’ve already told him, seeing as how I thought he was going to be going the same way. I could fetch the knives to show him. They’re a very nice set of flaying knives my father had made at…”

“And how long did the last prisoner survive after the flaying, Xeris?”

“Ooh, a good long time, my lord. Not as long as some, but then it was hot. The heat does for them. Near two days. Long enough, I reckon. Longer than I’d want to lie around without my skin. Very good skin it was too. Didn’t tear the way some of them do. It was a skin a craftsman could feel it was worth taking a bit of trouble over. Very nice. Of course, on top of the two days, there’s the near three hours it takes to do the…”

“All right. I’ll drink it.” Chekov caught up the cup and tossed it back, trying not to think what it was. The blood was lost in the heavy red wine and after a whole day without food, the alcohol flushed his cheeks and sang in his ears.

“Good. Liiz, come here, please. Now, take each other’s hands and face one another. Repeat after me. I bind my body to your body, my blood to your blood, my soul to your soul and this unto the end of life.” It wasn’t until he was half way through, her light, musical voice a descant to his uncertain tenor, that he realised he was marrying her. Her hand was very cool and as they finished she withdrew it, calmly and deliberately. 

“I’ll see you on the morrow.” The Duke gravely inclined his head and Chekov found himself following his new wife out of the room, into the narrow stair. The gaoler, Xeris, was at his heels. The repulsive little man disappeared downwards, while Em started in the other direction. Chekov stopped dead by the door, with no idea whom he was meant to follow.

“What are you waiting for?” Liiz looked back at him, puzzled.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do… Are you expecting me to come with you, or…”

Liiz put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. “Look, I’ve got bread burning in the oven, your mother’s holding the baby, so I dare say he’ll be bawling his head off, and I don’t know where else you think you’re going to sleep tonight. You’re a married man now, Pavel, Em’s son. There’s no bunk in the guard room for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Along with the cold and the slight fever that burnt in his body as it mended itself, Kirk was having to cope with the certainty that Chekov wouldn’t just sit by and let his captain be executed at midnight. That should, perhaps, have been comforting, only the alternative appeared to be that Chekov should be executed at midnight. If anything that was less palatable.

When they came back for him they didn’t use the manacles. Kirk could put a great many interpretations on that but forced himself not to speculate. The short walk down the corridor and across the now dew-wet courtyard, ended in the hall. A few smoky tapers and the glowing embers of a fire made little pools of light in the blackness. The Duke of Eaye was rubbing his hands together against the cold, blowing out his breath in great steamy clouds.

“Captain, you can go. I don’t want to see you, or your people, in my territory again. Your communication device will be returned to you when you’re far enough away from here not to be a risk to us.” He held out the sword that Kirk had been wearing when he was captured but the Captain ignored it. 

“What about Ensign Chekov? Where is he?”

“He won’t be going with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Captain, if I was captured by my enemies, and one of my young place men saw that he could give his life to preserve mine, it would be his duty to do so. I wouldn’t be happy about it, particularly if I felt that…”

“You’ve killed him?” Kirk lunged forward, only to be caught by two of the Duke’s men and held, struggling ineffectually against them.

“His life was forfeit.”

“No. You recognised my authority over him. You respected that. You knew I didn’t want him to…”

“It was the proper thing for him to do. You had better go now. Doubtless, your crew will be concerned.”

“I want to see him.” He wouldn’t believe it until he saw the body.

“Captain, my decision is final.” 

***

“But I don’t know anything about babies!” Chekov tried to stare down the raging, scarlet faced infant and it suddenly smiled at him. Liiz looked suitably surprised. She came over to check that the baby’s new father hadn’t resorted to underhand methods, like smothering.

“There, he likes you. Just let me sit down and I’ll take him.” 

Chekov rocked the baby experimentally and was rewarded with a little chuckle. “How old is he?”

“Two full tides. Give him to me.” 

The ensign shifted his hold, preliminary to handing the awkward bundle to its mother, and stopped dead. She’d unfastened her tunic and milk was streaming from her exposed nipple, into the towel she’d tucked around her waist. 

“Well, what do earth babes suckle? Beer?” She snatched the child and put it to the breast, where it began suckling like an expert. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her engorged breast or the contented smile that seemed to be shared between mother and baby. “Oh, that’s better. The Duke would want me just when I was going to feed him and he’s been asleep ever since midday.” She lowered her head to whisper nonsense to the baby, effectively excluding her husband

“Is this for me?” he asked hesitantly after a couple of minutes. The child’s grandmother had laid a simple meal on the table before vanishing through the curtain that hung over the door into the one-room apartment. 

“Of course it is. I ate ages ago.”

He sat down on the wooden bench at the table and picked up a knife. It was quite sharp enough to make a respectable weapon. They’d happily left him alone with a defenceless woman and child, as if it had never occurred to them that he might break his word. He could step back far enough from himself to appreciate the irony of that. It was exactly the behaviour that would make it impossible for him to do anything but honour his promise; as long as they kept their side of the bargain and let the captain go. Even if they didn’t, he strongly doubted he could hurt these two or even threaten them.

“What’s his name?”

“Tor, Pavel’s son.”

“But he’s not my son.”

“It would be very complicated to explain that to everyone. I presume you want to be called Pavel, not Rae?”

“That is my name.”

“Then he’s Tor, Pavel’s son now. Aren’t you, sweet?”

He finished up his meal in silence and looked across at her, half expecting the baby to be finished too. She’d shifted the child to the other breast and they both looked sleepy and content but the infant wriggled every now and again and gave a hearty suck that showed it was still in the serious business of obtaining nourishment.

“How long does he take, to feed, I mean?”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know what to do.”

“And what d’you think you’ll do when I’ve finished?”

He blushed furiously. “I don’t know.”

She grinned at him. “Clear up the dishes. Tidy his crib and get him a night-shirt out of the chest. Put it to air by the fire. He’ll be finished by then.”

She watched him, her gaze uncomfortably intense, as he did what she asked. He had no idea what time it was, no way of telling whether the midnight deadline was past and no idea when they would let the captain go, if at all. Perhaps they were only stringing him along. 

Liiz was an enigma, too. She seemed to accept him, almost as a matter of course, yet she must resent him. He’d killed her husband, the child’s father. Was she teasing him, too? Would someone arrive in a moment to take him away and lock him up for the rest of the night, to put chains on him and make clear that he was here to suffer for what he’d done… or would the only chains be promises, tight as iron cuffs on his wrists?

Chekov banked the fire up for the night. Liiz shivered a little as her eyes followed the controlled, even movements of his arms. The child finally ceased its feeding and relaxed contentedly, looking up at her, Chekov imagined grimly, with his dead father’s eyes. Liiz turned as she began to rise from the low stool and caught Chekov’s remorseful expression.

“What?”

“Is there a… a bathroom?” he asked, almost at random.

“Through there.” She pointed at what he’d taken for a cupboard door set at an angle across the corner of the room. He went to investigate, silently laying bets with himself as to how primitive the facilities would be. The gleam of ceramic and plastic was like a dream. He shut the door behind him and leaned up against it, almost able to believe that he was back on board the ship. It was hard to accept that Eaye and his followers lived in the Dark Ages by choice but the choice obviously didn’t extend to cesspits and washing in cold water. 

A little later, bathed, warm and wearing a clean, if unfamiliar, shirt, he re-emerged. Liiz scowled at him. “I thought you were going to be all night. I don’t want to go to bed stinking of sour milk, thank you.” The bathroom door did its best to slam behind her but it didn’t have the resonance of centuries old timber. She’d tidied up the room in his absence and the baby, Tor, was sound asleep in the rocking crib. The steady orange glow of one lamp, almost extinguished, revealed a double bed built into the wall, behind what he’d assumed was simply panelling. He looked at it thoughtfully. Surely, even in the interests of justice, no one could expect them to share a bed, less than a day after he’d killed her husband?

***

Kirk’s two escorts suddenly stopped, as if they’d reached a prearranged location. One of them held his horse’s head while the other offered him a hand to dismount. Kirk did it neatly enough, given that his hands were still bound in front of him. 

He guessed they’d ridden about ten kilometres from the castle but the night was moonless and the stars unfamiliar. Kirk had no idea of his location relative to the Duke’s stronghold. If they planned to abandon him here it could take him a while to find sympathetic assistance, if there was any to find. Eaye represented an isolated neutral spot in a region of strong pro-Klingon sentiment. Really, he couldn’t have chosen a worse place to have to look for help. 

The older of the two men with him tied the reins of Kirk’s horse to his own mount’s harness and pulled something out of a pocket.

“Here, Captain.” He tossed it twenty metres into a tangle of undergrowth, pulled his animal round until he was facing back the way they had come and kicked it into a businesslike trot. The riderless horse followed amenably and the little cavalcade vanished into the darkness. Within minutes, the rattle of horses’ hooves on the track had faded. Alone in the dark, still bound, Kirk began to search for his communicator.

Half an hour later, cold and ill-tempered, he put his hand on the missing device and a thistle-like plant simultaneously. “Damn!”

He fumbled it with his stiff, hobbled fingers but eventually managed to flip the cover open. From then, it was a matter of seconds before he was back in the blessed warmth and light of the transporter room. 

Scott raised his eyebrows and produced a bladed tool that made short work of the cord round his captain’s wrists. Kirk began to rub the life back into his hands.

“And the rest of them, Captain?”

“Did the Ambassador make it?”

“Aye, sir. He’s recovering.”

Kirk nodded. “Good. You may as well turn the damn transporter off, Mister Scott. There’s no one else to beam up.”

***

Kirk felt like retreating to his quarters and locking the door but he found his feet were heading for the bridge without any instructions from him. Before anything else, he had to check with Spock for any developments on the planet that required immediate attention.

“Jim?”

McCoy had anticipated him and got to the turbo-lift before him. “What’s this Scotty tells me…”

“Lieutenant Berg is dead. The Duke intends to execute Chekov in retaliation for the accidental shooting of one of his men. He said he’d spare him long enough to bury the lieutenant but I don’t know how much time that gives us. We’re going to have to go in and get him out…”

Something in McCoy’s face made him stop. “What, Doctor? What is it?”

“We’ve had orders from Command. Star Fleet has recognised the new Eastern Alliance as the legitimate government of Trask. We have no mandate to interfere without their authority. And they’ve ordered us out.”

“When? How long ago…”

“Two hours. You can defy those orders, but you won’t get away with pretending you didn’t know about them.”

“I only want to get him back…

He stopped, realising what he was saying, even as the lift doors parted to reveal the bridge, peopled with anxious faces. Among them was Vice Admiral Russell, the man responsible for this whole ticklish region, where Klingon and Federation interests ran so close you could barely slip a knife between them.

“Captain Kirk, I’m relieved that you’ve managed to return to us. What happened?”

Kirk took a deep breath. His only chance of taking unofficial action was lost. “Several members of the Council offered to escort us to a tribal meeting of the less stalwart supporters of the pro-Klingon faction. The Ambassador hoped to be able to persuade them to at least argue for an even handed treaty with both the Empire and the Federation. We were supposed to be going secretly, disguised, but our party was ambushed, outside the Duke of Eaye’s castle. It may have been the intention of the attackers to blame the Duke but I don’t believe he was involved. The Council members and their guards escaped, possibly because they knew about the whole thing. Lieutenant Berg was killed outright. Chekov and I were captured. During the struggle, Chekov was providing covering fire on my orders. He shot one of Eaye’s officers, an unarmed man. Some of them wanted me dead for it, some of them wanted him. I imagine he thought he was doing his duty by doing a little canvassing on his own behalf.” He couldn’t begin to keep the bitterness out of his voice, even though he knew he’d have done the same thing in Chekov’s place. “And now you’re going to tell me the rules have all changed, and there’s nothing we can do to get him back.”

Russell did look as if he might know what Kirk was going through. “We’ll contact the Eastern Alliance, ask them in the interests of keeping the changeover as sweet as possible whether they’ll put some pressure on the Duke of Eaye… Lieutenant Uhura, can you get me a channel to the President?”

“Admiral, we can go in with minimum force. I can pinpoint where he’s probably being held…”

Kirk had to try, useless though he knew it was.

“Leaving aside the Prime Directive, it’s just the sort of excuse the Klingons are looking for to start a whole spate of incidents along this border. Trask has decided it wants to be allied to the Empire. We can’t argue with that.”

“We can’t just leave him…”

“We won’t. As soon as the Lieutenant makes contact…” He glanced back at her and she nodded.

“I have the President’s office, Admiral.”

“Thank you. Put me through.”

The screen filled with Trask sunlight, unexpected after Kirk’s escape from the darkness immediately below them.

The new Vice President of Trask, looking like a small town politician who had campaigned hard for office and now found it frightened her to death, got to her feet behind her grand desk. It was obvious that she was more uncomfortable standing than she had been sitting but she coughed and did her best to summon a little self-assurance. “What can I do for you, Admiral Russell?”

“A Federation delegation, in company with members of the former High Council of Trask, has been ambushed. One member of the delegation is in the hands of the Duke of Eaye, who has expressed the intention of taking his life.”

“Why?” she interrupted nervously. “Why should the Duke do that? He’s always saying he’s got no quarrel with either side.”

Kirk smiled a tired imitation of his best smile, the one adapted for middle-aged matrons who suspected no one was taking them seriously. “Madam, one of the Duke’s men was killed during the ambush. My officer was only providing covering fire, while we attempted to withdraw safely…”

“If you mean your man killed one of the Duke’s men, then say so! Eaye is perfectly entitled to demand justice. You’re lucky he didn’t want your skin, or did you slip away too quickly for him?”

“My officer was acting to defend us from assault. He didn’t intend to kill anyone.”

“But he did,” the woman pointed out, as if Kirk was attempting to deny this. “Was the victim actually attacking you at the time?”

“No,” Kirk admitted. “Eaye claims he was unarmed…”

“Then your man wasn’t acting in self-defence, was he? Or are you trying to say that Eaye was lying?”

“It was an accident…”

“Our law doesn’t excuse people who cause death through carelessness. As a result we have remarkably few fatal accidents. The family of the deceased is clearly entitled to a life in compensation. Any lawyer could have told you that, and I have no authority to bend the law to suit you, any more than Admiral Russell has been able to bend the Federation’s law to help us. You have fleched your arrow, Captain. Now I suggest you string it and let fly.” She smiled, clearly feeling she’d scored a point. 

Russell interrupted. “Thank you, Madam. Since the legal position is so clear cut, we won’t trouble you further.” He signalled to Uhura to close the channel and held up a hand to silence Kirk’s unspoken objections. “She’s a retired justice. Their attitude to law is implacable, at least among her tribal group. I’m sorry, Captain.”

“Now, just a moment, Russell…”

“I’m sorry, Captain. This is their planet. And this is the sector where I’m juggling eggs to keep the peace. I will not put everything that’s been built up over the past decade at risk — no, not even at risk. I will not trade one man’s life for the virtual certainty of a border war that could devastate whole planets. We came here to try to salvage the Federation interest, not sabotage it. As I’m sure Ensign Chekov understood, just as Lieutenant Berg did. You will not intervene.”

Kirk looked down briefly, fighting his temper. “You wouldn’t object to me speaking to Eaye directly, trying to persuade him to change his mind…”

“No. But no threats, no bribes.”

Uhura already had the frequency for Eaye’s castle on standby. She listened to the call sign repeating itself once, twice… half a dozen times. “They’re not responding, Captain.”

***

“Hold still!”

Chekov was sure Liiz was pulling his hair deliberately.

“There, that’s finished.” She pushed a small mirror into his hands and he stared at what was left of his hair. If it was a centimetre long, that was a generous estimate.

“I look like a…”

“A man. You know…” She walked round him thoughtfully. “You’re not that bad looking, really. If you had a beard…”

“I will start to grow one in a few days.”

“You will? How do you know?”

“I use a suppressor, to stop it growing. That will wear off.”

“You’re older than I thought. Were you married, before this?”

“No.”

“Liiz?” The older woman who had fed him the previous night had opened the door to their quarters and now she was standing looking at him. “It’s going to take a lot of getting used to this.” She went and fetched a broom out of a cupboard.

“I’ll do that, mother,” Liiz said rather irritably as the woman began to sweep up the mess from her hairdressing.

“Rae never liked having his hair cut either.” Her tone was conversational, as if she didn’t bear any grudges for the loss of her son, or her son-in-law. Chekov wasn’t really sure which. He tried to look a little more cheerful. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in any family arguments.

“I said I’ll do that!” Liiz forcibly appropriated the broom. The baby’s grandmother folded her arms and stumped over to the crib.

“How’s my little grandson today then? Shall I dress him, Liiz?”

“Please, mother! I don’t need any help. I can cope…”

“There’s breakfast all ready in our room, if you don’t want to have to cook for… what was your name again? I’m afraid I don’t catch on as quickly as I used to.”

“He’s my husband and I’ll cook his breakfast.”

“I’m not very hungry,” Chekov ventured cautiously.

“Call me mother, dear. Didn’t you sleep properly last night? I suppose she let the baby disturb you…”

Chekov looked at Liiz who had turned worryingly pale. Her eyes were narrowed. He decided to burn one set of boats in the hope of securing the other. “Excuse me, madam, but I had a very peaceful night. The baby did not wake up. Liiz obviously doesn’t require any assistance, although we are both grateful for your offer of help, and I am looking forward to eating breakfast alone with my wife. Thank you.”

“Mother” suddenly looked very like what Chekov now decided must be her daughter. “You’ve got another fine one here, my girl.” The offended grandmother swept out of the room and Chekov was left alone with his wife. He turned to see what her reaction would be.

“What did you do that for? Who’s going to look after Tor this morning now you’ve annoyed my mother? Eh? Answer me that!”

The baby began to scream, a thin, hungry noise. Chekov turned to the crib. “Shall I pick him up?”

“Don’t you touch him. Just get out of here. Get out of here and don’t bloody come back, you bloody troublemaker. Don’t expect me to…”

He closed the door carefully on the sound of her rage, aware that he’d probably burnt all his boats. Never mind. If they could only all agree that they didn’t want him, perhaps they’d let him go…

“Ah, there you are, lad.”

The scarred veteran of the previous night was sitting on the low sill of a small window in the wall of the spiral staircase, smoking a pipe. “I saved you a bit of breakfast. Didn’t reckon either of them would feed you this morning.”

He handed over a doorstep sandwich to his new son-in-law. Chekov looked at it for a moment then sat down on the lowest step.

“What am I supposed to be doing here?”

The old man blew a couple of thoughtful smoke rings. “I’d’ve thought that was obvious. You’ve got parade in half an hour. And those boots are never going to pass muster. No indeed. Take them off.”

The reluctant recruit to the Duke’s army parked his breakfast on the step next to him and did as he was bid. His father-in-law produced a cloth from his pocket and began to buff them. Chekov retrieved the sandwich and took a cautious bite. The filling was something akin to very salt bacon. He finished it fairly smartly and found his boots were ready for him.

“It’ll do you no good at all to take sides between Liiz and her mother. No good at all. Never did me any good. And if you’ve any sense you won’t have any opinions about raising children.”

“I have no opinions anyway, uh… sir.”

“Call me father. Rae always did. But don’t let Liiz think you don’t care. Try to give the impression you’ve been persuaded round to her way of thinking.”

Chekov put his boots back on rather wishing he’d been offered something to drink. The salt meat had dried out his mouth. “What now?”

“I’ll take you down to the wardroom, find you a uniform. Come on, lad.”

***

“I’m your second.” A handsome native, taller and heavier than Chekov, smiled as he held the door open and admitted him to the room beyond. Chekov felt the anxious tightening of his gut that told him he didn’t like this man. “And this is your squad.”

Eight men, all of about his own age, sat in various stages of undress on the low bench that ran round the room. Chekov was suddenly grateful for his polished boots and freshly barbered hair. He felt he ought to introduce himself, but as who? He ran his eyes over the men, noting distinguishing features that he could hang names on later. Nine lockers, eight men. He took a risk. “Who is missing?”

They all looked at each other and forced smiles off their faces.

“Sam,” his second informed him. “He’s overslept again. Diek, go and drag him out of bed…”

The door crashed open and a youngster half fell through, his boots unbuttoned and his uniform in disarray. He skidded to a halt at Chekov’s feet, blinking wide grey eyes.

“I’m sorry, sir.” He halted, frozen, his eyes registering the unexpected new presence in the room. He swallowed and came to attention. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I overslept.”

“So I see,” Chekov said severely. He didn’t take his eyes off the youngster but he let the reactions of the rest of the squad register in his peripheral vision.

“Again.”

He turned to his second, waiting to have that remark explained.

“He overslept again.”

“I’m sorry, sir…”

How many times was this nervous child going to apologise? He noticed that the boy’s blond hair was uncropped, quite unlike the adult men Chekov had seen so far.

“Is this a frequent occurrence?”

“It won’t happen again, sir.”

This time he caught a snigger from behind him. Instinct told him — no, sympathetic fellow feeling told him that this was the new boy getting teased. Only he wasn’t exactly sure whether he or the tardy Sam counted as new boy. How he dealt with this was going to set the tone for the rest of this pantomime. He nodded crisply to no one in particular. “What is the penalty for being late reporting for duty?”

The boy’s face fell and his second smiled, a smirk of satisfaction. Chekov was about to fall into someone’s trap, or win someone a bet, by the looks of it. Silence emanated from the rest of the squad.

“Six lashes, sir.” His second spoke decisively. The commander had made the fatal error and his second wasn’t going to throw him a life line.

“Then next time any member of this squad is late for duty, you will all receive six lashes. Surely you can take some responsibility for each other. Is this a military unit or a bunch of children?”

Everyone was staring at him, one or two with their mouths open. His second in command broke the silence. “Get on with it. Trask knows what he’ll do if one of you is late for parade.” His men returned to buttoning their boots and readying themselves for inspection. Chekov walked over to look out of the window, letting the silence build. Outside the sun slanted low over the battlements onto the parade ground, which a handful of small boys were sweeping. They’d about finished and a couple of them began to fight, turning their brooms into quarter-staffs. He looked up at the castle towers and beyond them to the distant hills. Could he really be stuck here for good?

A whistle blew somewhere. The men behind him got to their feet and picked up their weapons, belting their swords on. He turned round himself and caught Sam’s red, anxious eyes. The boy’s expression hardened defiantly. ’So, I’m the enemy whatever I do,’ Chekov thought. He shrugged and smiled, determined to overcome the boy’s hostility. One of the squad looked back to hurry the laggard along. The rest were already half way out the door.

“Go on. We’ll catch up.” Chekov just hoped that Sam knew the way, because he didn’t. He knelt down and pushed the boy’s hands aside. The button hook made short work of the fastenings. “Did they get you drunk last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any particular reason?”

“We were… well, we were…”

“Celebrating a small victory over the Federation?”

“Yes, sir. And…”

“Drinking to your commander’s memory?”

“Um… yes, sir.”

Sam was as transparent as vacuum. For whatever reason, the previous night’s drunk had not been a wake for Rae, Em’s son.

“Tell me what happens at morning drill.” Chekov followed Sam down the corridor, taking in as much detail as the boy could give him before his abilities as a commander were put on public display.

***

In the event, he needn’t have worried. He could have predicted exactly the routine of the drill. He needed only to know where his men fitted into the pattern and then it was almost automatic. He had to give his second credit, too. They appeared to pass the gimlet eyed inspection of the Duke himself with flying colours, and when his squad was led off the parade ground, into the shade of a long, low veranda, their marching was clockwork precise. Chekov left the little clutch of officers, where Em had been whispering a commentary into his ear, and joined his men.

“Weapons’ training now,” his second informed him briskly.

The boys had abandoned their brushes and were dragging massive wood and straw targets out on to the gravelled yard.

Nearer at hand another squad was silently chaining one of its members up to one of a row of three posts.

They weren’t making any sort of performance out of it. The unfortunate miscreant, stripped to the waist, had his hands dragged up to the iron cuffs that hung from the top of the post. A ratchet clicked as something was done to pull the chains tight, so that he could barely stand on his two feet. Almost immediately the first lash fell across his back. Chekov didn’t look, but the leathery crack turned his stomach. He’d just have to pray that none of his squad was stupid enough to be late for duty, or to break any of the other military regulations that Chekov didn’t even know existed yet. The thought of doing that to someone he was responsible for…

“Sir?” His second broke into his train of thought.

“Yes… I don’t know your name.”

“Varn. We’re scheduled for formation firing drill with squads seven and nine this morning. But…”

“There’s a problem?”

“Well, you don’t know anything about anything, do you?”

Chekov shook his head, smiling, refusing to be offended. If he was ill-informed about his new responsibilities, it wasn’t his fault. “You take charge. I imagine you expected to do that anyway, until I came along.”

Varn tensed and scowled, making Chekov wonder if he’d insulted him, or was appearing to be deliberately stupid. “No, I didn’t. That’s no good. We need nine men.”

“So what do you do in battle when someone is injured? Go home?”

“No…”

“Well then, I expect my squad to do better with eight men than the rest do with nine. Get started.”

To his surprise, it worked. Varn stood a little straighter and turned to the rank and file. “All right, you heard what the Commander said. Let’s show seven and nine what we can do.”

Chekov stood a little way behind the firing line, affecting officer class disinterest in the mere mechanics of warfare. The three ranks of men lined up, each with their bundles of distinctively fleched arrows,

“Hei-eech!” Varn, sergeant major style, bawled orders that meant nothing to Chekov, although he quickly discerned a pattern. One rank fired, while another ducked back under the level of their arrows and the third put arrows to strings and were already striding forward to shoot again. No one fumbled or broke the relentless rhythm. Arrow after arrow thudded into the centres of the distant targets.

Chekov wasn’t convinced of the usefulness of archery in modern warfare but as an exercise in trusting the next bowman not to put an arrow in your back before you could dodge out of the way, it was impressive. He picked up an arrow from the basketfuls laid out behind the firing line. It was clearly a mass-produced item, moulded in solid, heavy metal, with plastic flights and fine barbs on the tips. The factory that produced these could just as well have turned out guns, like the automatic weapons that had been in use yesterday. Keera had a chemical industry capable of manufacturing all the propellant its armies might require. Archery should have been nothing more than an anachronistic sport generations ago. The Ambassador had said that you could only be sure you’d understood the Trask when you realised you’d never understand them. Being here in the midst of them didn’t make things any clearer.

The Trask, however, clearly took this exercise seriously. The only unevenness in the whole thing was the gap left by Varn’s absence. That gave Chekov an idea. He walked along the row, telling people to drop out. The first couple looked startled and unsure whether they should obey this madman. Then they got the idea. By the time six had gone, the entire operation had collapsed in chaos and one man had an arrow through his hand. Chekov decided he’d be a little more cautious in future with revolutionary new ideas.

Varn turned on him. “What in Trask’s name did you think you were doing? How can they keep in step if the person next to them isn’t there any more…”

Chekov picked out two members of the injured man’s squad to take him to whatever medical facilities existed. The casualty looked more bemused than in pain.

“Clearly they can’t. So what is the use of this? When anyway do you ever have a clear parade ground to line up on for a battle? Wouldn’t you put your archers behind some cover?”

“Yes, in a battle…”

“Well, what is the point of this then? I can see that you are achieving a solid wall of fire but since your enemies will have phasers, they can take you all out before your men have pulled the first flight of arrows.”

Varn pulled himself up to his full six foot plus height and glowered down at his commander. “Trask do not fight Trask with phasers.”

“You have pitched battles on perfectly clear battlefields with limitless supplies of arrows? And none of you ever get injured?”

Varn began to look sulky. “Rae never…”

Chekov realised that all three squads were watching him having a slanging match with his second.

“We’ll talk about this later. The exercise is over.”

A disciplined flurry of children ran forward to collect the spent projectiles. Those that had hit the marked targets were stacked separately, divided by colours. The red fleches of Chekov’s squad were in a clear majority. Pleasure at that gave way to a queasy uncertainty. These men could end up fighting a guerrilla war against the Federation. He didn’t really want them to be that good. He turned round to ask Varn what they were supposed to do now and found himself nose to chest with a red-haired, blue-eyed Klingon. He took a step back.

“Kronor, Mardrak’s son. One of my squad was injured during your…”

“I overestimated their ability to compensate for a little… disorder. It was my mistake. I’d…”

“We Trask call ourselves warriors, but to the likes of you, this is just a game, isn’t it? What’s your name?”

“Uh, Pavel, Em’s son.”

“No, your name.”

“Ensign Pavel Chekov.”

The Klingon nodded his massive head. “Welcome to exile, Chekov. When you get lonely, we’ll talk about…” He waved his hand up at the invisible stars.

***

Archery practice was followed by burial detail. Chekov found himself outside the castle walls, on the opposite side to where Susanne and Rae had fallen. The two corpses were carried out on plain wooden boards, shrouded with sheets. Rae’s was pale blue, presumably for the Duke. Someone had taken the trouble to find silver, red and deep blue for Susanne.

Em stood in silence while the squad took turns with shovels to cut through the stony soil. A little way off, under the speckled shade of a couple of scrawny trees, Liiz played with Tor and ignored her mother, who was making a great show of desolate weeping. Another elderly woman Chekov assumed was Rae’s mother. She’d given him a tired, forgiving smile that cut straight to his heart and now stood staring at the dry earth. 

The ground around them was scarred with old graves, although the Trask didn’t appear to go in for monuments or memorials. Chekov fought an uneasy battle with his conscience. Susanne had had religious beliefs, that much he knew. But he’d never been aware of quite what they were. For himself, he wanted the place marked, because once the Enterprise had gone, once the Federation had pulled out of here, as had begun to seem increasingly likely, Susanne’s grave was going to be the only link he had with home. He pulled his regulation Trask knife out of its leather sheath and went to strip one of the curious flat branches off the tree where his wife and stepson sat.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a — a marker, for Susanne’s grave. It’s an Earth custom.”

She began to unfasten her shirt to feed the baby. He glanced up protectively lest his men should make any coarse comment, but even those who were standing idly by seemed to take the scene for granted. The wood was quickly smoothed and shaped into an inverted blunted triangle, onto which, after a little more hesitation, he carved a bare cross and underneath it a letter ’S’. As he walked back, preoccupied, towards the digging, his foot sunk into soft ground and he looked down, startled. Another fresh grave. He stepped clear and turned back to obliterate the evidence of his blunder, running his fingers through the loose earth. A sudden shiver ran up and down his spine.

“Deep enough, sir?” Varn wiped the film of perspiration off his brow with a dusty hand.

“Whose grave is that?”

His second looked puzzled for a moment, then comprehension dawned. “Not your Captain. I took him two hours ride from here and left him with his signalling device. The yellow-teeth might have had him, but we left him alive and well.”

Chekov felt the shivers depart. He had no doubt that Kirk could deal with the local carnivores. “Yes, that’s deep enough…”

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Will you help me with… with the lieutenant?”

Varn shrugged and began to lay out ropes. He whistled up a couple of men to help and the four of them lowered first Susanne and then Rae into the ground. Liiz wandered over, twisting a little posy of wild flowers together.

“Don’t you say anything?” Chekov asked Varn, surprised that there seemed to be no sense of purpose or expectation among the onlookers.

“No. He can’t hear. And I’ve nothing to say that he’d want to hear if he could.” He picked up a shovel and began to shift the loose, dry soil into the grave.

Chekov turned his back on both graves and said good-bye to Susanne in his head. “And come back for me. Don’t leave me here,” he tacked on at the end. He suspected that tears now would do him no good at all, but when someone took his hand he let out a startled gulp. Liiz pulled him round to face Susanne again. She let the flowers tumble out of her hand into the grave, then put her foot on the tip of the shovel’s blade and levered up the handle.

“Go on.”

He took the shovel, grateful for the chance to bow his head and disguise emotion as exertion. Around him, he was aware of the rest of the funeral party drifting off while he and Varn steadily shifted the heaps of earth. The bigger man finished sooner and he was alone — outside the castle, unsupervised. Armed even, by the primitive standards of Trask domestic warfare. But if Kirk did come back for him, he’d have to start looking for him here. Going on the run wouldn’t help, particularly in country where the Federation wasn’t popular and everyone he encountered might well be hostile. And anyway, he’d given his word. He neatened the final mound of earth and pushed Susanne’s memorial firmly into the undisturbed soil at her head. He had nothing else to say to her, but he paused by Rae’s unmarked resting place for a brief moment, long enough to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll look after Liiz and Tor for now. And your squad.” Then he swung the shovel over his shoulder and walked back into the castle.


	3. Chapter 3

It felt very much like lunch time. Chekov looked around the small gate-house yard for clues to his next move. He didn’t know whether the Trask ate at midday, nor whether an officer ate with his men in some communal mess, in the ward room Em had introduced him to that morning, and which he couldn’t remember how to get to, or at home with his family. If the latter was the case, unless Liiz’s behaviour at the burial was good sign, he would be going hungry.

The comparative quiet of the castle did suggest that either a meal or a siesta was taking place. With no one acting out the role of medieval extras the ancient pile took on the air of a preserved piece of history. He half expected to have to show a ticket as he stepped through the small sally-port in the immense wooden inner doors.

“Liiz went up a moment ago,” someone said from behind him. When he turned, it was a face he didn’t know.

“Thank you,” he mumbled. He paused to work out the most direct route up to their apartment. Even if Liiz wouldn’t feed him, her father might. And he could hardly blame the girl.

“I thought you’d got lost.” Liiz started to get up from the table, leaving her spoon standing in a deep bowl of something that smelt unbelievably delicious. “I kept yours warm.”

“Don’t get up. I’ll get it.” He helped himself to the bowl that had been left on the edge of the small charcoal burner, using a dishcloth to save his hands from burning. As he sat down, she pushed a basket of bread rolls towards him then began to pour out a mug of beer from an earthenware jug.

“I wasn’t sure whether to come up.”

“Oh, I always cooked all Rae’s food. You don’t want to eat the rubbish they serve up downstairs, not if you don’t have to.”

“No, I meant… You told me not to come back.”

She blinked at him. “I didn’t, did I? Well, where else would you go?”

“I thought I’d upset you.”

She started to laugh. “I didn’t mean it, you straw-brain. You didn’t think I did, did you? Oh, boy. You really are something. I married you, didn’t I? Didn’t your… Were your mother and father married?”

“Yes.”

“And they never shouted at each other?”

“Yes, but… the circumstances were different.”

She put her spoon down again and looked at him very intently. “I bet they were. I’ll tell you how. And I know this for a fact, so don’t try to deny it. At some point, about eleven full tides before you came along, they had sex together.”

He choked on a mouthful of soup, barely avoiding spitting it back into the bowl. “I know that… I didn’t think you’d… I mean, it didn’t seem right.”

“So this morning, everyone asks me, what’s your new husband like in the sheets, and I have to say, I don’t know. I think he’s too young. Or too shy. Or he prefers boys. Or…”

“Why didn’t you simply tell them it was none of their business?”

“Because then they’d just go and tell everyone else that you were so bad I was embarrassed to talk about it. For pity’s sake, Pavel.”

“Well, now I know that you… that you want me to… I mean, that you don’t mind…”

“Well, if it’s such an effort.”

“No, I don’t mean that.” He pushed his half eaten soup away from him. “I’m sorry, Liiz. This is all making me very confused. I didn’t want to get married — that’s not your fault, I know, but it takes a little time to get used to it. And I feel badly that I killed your husband, even if you… even if this is a perfectly normal way to be behaving as far as you are concerned. Give me a little time, please.”

She stacked his bowl on top of hers and carried them away to the cooking area.

“All right then,” she said coldly, bending over the crib and tucking in a sheet that didn’t need it.

“I’m trying to say I’ll do my best to make this work.”

“Thank you.”

“Liiz? You have to give me some help. I don’t know what you expect.”

“What did you promise last night?”

“Uh…”

“Have you forgotten already?”

“I was trying to remember the exact words… to be Em’s son… no, his faithful son, and the Duke’s tenant and…”

“No, what did you promise me?”

“I said…”

“We said.”

“We said, I bind…”

“I bind my body to your body, my blood to your blood, my soul to your soul and this unto the end of life.”

“Yes. That’s what we said.”

“Right. We said it. I said it. That’s what I expect. Do I need to draw pictures?”

“No.” He felt furiously angry with her and her interrogation technique, all the more so because from her point of view she was so inarguably in the right.

“Did you have enough to eat?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Are you going to drink that ale?”

“I don’t think I’d better.”

“Please yourself.”

He didn’t even know where he stood now. “Liiz, look…” She carried on past him, putting the remains of lunch away. He caught at her arm to make her stop and talk. When she pulled away and started to sweep the crumbs off the table into her cupped hand he gave up.

She clenched her hand shut on the flakes of crust and turned round. “I’m sorry, Pavel.” But she was talking to the empty air.

***

The squadroom was empty and cool. Chekov sat down on one of the benches, put his head in his hands and tried to decide what he ought to do.

Even if doing as she wished was the right choice, he couldn’t put aside his first two strong images of her, kneeling beside her husband’s body and feeding her child. Both put her beyond the boundary. He simply couldn’t conceive of her as someone it was possible to go to bed with, even before one considered mere questions of personal appearance or character. He supposed that men married widows all the time, even widows whose husbands they had known. He knew that marriages survived and frequently flourished after the arrival of children. And that was leaving aside all the casual and informal possibilities. Liiz had made it crystal clear that she had no problems with their relationship, if he would only get on and commence it.

It wasn’t as if… he stopped, and realised that he couldn’t even visualise her face. He was married to a woman whose face he wasn’t sure he could have picked out in a crowd. She wasn’t outrageously ugly, nor spectacularly beautiful, that was all. He didn’t know what she did, beyond caring for her son and cooking all her husband’s meals. He wouldn’t recognise her friends, her handwriting, her corpse, if called to identify it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir.” Sam stood in the doorway, looking all angles and embarrassment, as if he didn’t know what to do with the various bits of himself. “I think I left some things in here?”

Chekov shrugged. “Have a look for them.”

The boy circled the small room, obviously of the opinion that the missing items were somewhere near his new commander, but unwilling to actually approach and claim them.

“Can I help?” Chekov asked, glad of the diversion.

“They’re in my jacket.” Sam pointed straight at Chekov, who divined that he was sitting in front of the hook where the youngster’s property was hanging. The ensign stood up and moved out of Sam’s way. When the boy didn’t respond, he moved a little further and Sam darted forward, grabbed the jacket and retreated again. “Thank you, sir.”

Chekov waited to see what he’d do next and realised, with a start of surprise, that Sam was expecting a formal dismissal. One didn’t just turn one’s back and walk away from one’s commander, even in this informal setting. Particularly a new, an alien commander, who might do something unexpected, who didn’t seem to know the rules. Chekov frowned. He thought what he’d done this morning would at least have signalled that he wasn’t going to be arbitrary and unjust. Sam had answered his questions happily enough as they’d both scrambled to be ready for parade, had gladly accepted a hand with his boots. Why was he behaving now as if Chekov had sprouted a second head, with fangs?

Well, of course. In the meantime, Sam had found out who Chekov was. An alien murderer. Chekov only had to imagine the situation if someone had been responsible for Captain Kirk’s death, and the next day had been promoted to command of the Enterprise. Sam might not want to turn his back on Chekov, but suddenly Chekov wasn’t too sure he wanted to turn his back on Sam.

“Sam, can you spare a few moments? I need some information. Come and sit down.”

The boy sat cross-legged on the floor, as if waiting to be enlightened himself. Chekov smiled at the idea. “I need you. Forget I’m your commander. I just need someone to talk to. You know what happened to me?”

“Yes, Em took you under the Old Law, and you married Liiz.”

“Yes. Did she have to do that, because of what her father did?”

Sam shook his head. “No. She could have refused.”

“And then what would have happened?”

“I suppose you would have gone free and your Captain would have lost his skin.”

“That’s really how you execute people?”

The boy scowled. “No, well, Xeris would slit the…” He patted the nape of his neck. “…a nerve here. So they’re dead really, but their hearts keep beating. You can’t do that to Klingons, though. So he always said he’d cut their throats before he started.”

“Have you ever… have you watched him do it?”

“Oh yes!”

“And if Liiz hadn’t married me… could she have married anyone else? Are there rules about that?”

“Rules?”

“Well, in some places I’ve been to, a widow has to marry her husband’s younger brother, or she needs a dowry, money, before anyone will marry her. Or her religion forbids her to remarry at all.”

“No. No rules.”

“So she didn’t have to marry me or no one?”

“Well, no. She didn’t have to.”

Sam’s transparency didn’t extend to answering questions Chekov didn’t know he should be asking. He could tell that there was something Sam didn’t want to tell him about Liiz’s marriage prospects. Maybe it was merely her temper.

“What was your commander doing outside the castle yesterday?” He changed the subject, hoping this wouldn’t prove equally embarrassing for the youngster.

Sam hesitated. “Well… it could have been lots of things. We didn’t know about the attack until we saw the Barraggees taking up positions by the ford. And I was… I was on watchtower four, so I didn’t see it.”

The Barraggees were one of the militantly pro-Klingon tribes. That didn’t tell Chekov anything he didn’t already know.

“Why would they have chosen to attack so near this castle? As you are not on their side at the moment.”

Sam stood up and backed off a few steps. “Why do you want to know all this?”

“I’m just curious. I’m not used to… to being one of the Duke’s place men. I only want to try to understand what’s happening.”

Sam didn’t sit down again. “So you can betray the Duke?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Nothing. Really.”

“Maybe you should speak to someone else, not me.”

“Yes. Maybe Varn.”

“No! I mean… he’s not very good at explaining things. Um, I think one of the other officers would be better, don’t you?”

Chekov nodded. “Yes. I expect you’re right. Thank you, Sam.”

The boy almost ran out of the squad room leaving Chekov to sit and stare at the walls. As far as Liiz was concerned, he’d been better than nothing. It seemed unreasonable of her to be disappointed.

***

The afternoon was devoted to firing machine guns at moving targets. Varn had a way of taking sidelong glances at Chekov as he grappled with the unpredictable, bucking weapon that doubled his nervousness and halved his accuracy. As far as the new recruit could make out, he was being asked to achieve pin-point rapid fire accuracy with arms that had been beaten out by a village blacksmith on a bad day. The repeating mechanism jammed every half-dozen rounds and the noise it made each time convinced him the weapon was about to explode in his face. The fact that his squad, even Sam, could achieve what he patently couldn’t didn’t make him feel any better. Either the machine gun he’d used the previous day was infinitely superior, or fate had been taking a particular and malevolent interest in Rae, Em’s son.

Varn sat back on his heels, his ammunition expended and his target shredded. “They do take some getting used to,” he conceded with unlooked for generosity.

“You have phasers, don’t you?” Chekov demanded irritably. “When do we practice using those?” He swore colourfully as the loading mechanism pinched the tips of his fingers for the twentieth time.

“When we get some more power packs.” Varn shrugged. “We used to have plenty, but since the Federation blockaded us…”

Chekov lifted the gun to fire and the repeater jammed immediately. Another oath failed to move it. He was just about to throw it down and give up when he felt someone take the weight of the weapon.

“I’m quite good at getting these to work, sir. I used to help my father make them.” It was Sam. The boy sat down on the parched grass with the thing and began stripping it down.

You’re not being a good officer, Chekov thought. You’re not even being a good soldier. “Thank you, Sam.”

He cast his eye over the other seven men in the squad. Most were out of ammunition. Five of the ten targets had been completely demolished. Four were severely compromised. Only his own, clearly identified with the Trask pictogram for the number one, stood defiantly against the skyline, five hundred metres away.

“Have we finished, sir?” Varn’s tone was ultra-smooth.

“Yes, we have.”

“Diek!” Varn took the man’s gun, and pushed a clip of ammunition into it. The target was no longer moving, but the ease with which Varn perforated a line along its base, causing it to topple over, was as good as a slap in the face to his Commander.

“Line up!” Varn snapped. “Pay attention. We have field exercises tomorrow. We’ll be leaving directly after parade. Report, ready, to the squad room at a twelth after sun up. Farez, you make sure you shake Sam out of his bunk. Standard kit, no rations.”

A groan rippled along the line.

“Dismissed!”

Collecting their weapons and the remnants of their ammunition, the men began to drift away towards the castle. Only Sam remained with Varn and Chekov, trying to fit the jigsaw that was Chekov’s gun back to together. Chekov tried to keep half an eye on this process, in the hope that he’d be able to do it for himself in future.

“What field exercises?”

“Search and detain. Diek’ll go early, laying a trail. We have to hunt him down.”

“And what is the point of the exercise?”

“To catch Diek,” Varn answered condescendingly.

“You have to hunt down many fugitives?”

“Oh. I see what you mean. Well, yes. But it’s really about tackling difficult terrain, using stealth rather than overwhelming force, keeping out of sight, working as a team.”

Enthusiasm was creeping through into Varn’s voice.

“And what do I have to do?” Chekov asked. “Clearly it would be better if you took practical control of the exercise.”

“Clearly. Well, I’ll be outlining the set up tomorrow morning. I planned the whole exercise anyway, so I’ll just be observing in the field. I can’t take part because I know what Diek will be doing. You could tag along with me, or join in with them. If you don’t mind slowing them up.”

Despite the dig at the end, Chekov still thought Varn was softening up. “I have so much to learn about how you fight. Do you think it would be more useful if I watched you, or worked with them?”

Varn thought about it for a moment. “If you don’t mind getting up early, I think it might be best if you run with Diek.”

Chekov nodded. “Very well.” It sounded as if Varn just wanted him out of the way. Nonetheless, he might learn more by getting to know just one man.

“It should work now, sir.” Sam was offering him his gun.

“You must show me how to do that one day,” Chekov said, smiling his thanks. Sam grinned. He seemed to have forgotten whatever had offended him earlier in the squad room.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Varn said dismissively. “That’s what you’ve got Sam for, to do the dirty work. Shouldn’t you be somewhere, Sam?”

“Math is starting late this afternoon. I’ve got time to get back.” He fell into step with the two men.

“You’re still at school?” Chekov asked, surprised.

Varn reached out and tugged at a lock of Sam’s hair. “He’s a cadet. Half school, half real life, eh, Sam?”

“Real life’s better.”

“What about the rest of the squad? Are they off duty?”

“No, they’re on watch till sundown, but they’re back up to five, so Uden, Nes’ son gets to browbeat them, and we can take it easy. Unless there’s something you know we should be doing.”

“I think I should be finding out how to do my job. It’s very plain that you can do it for me, but…”

Varn shrugged willingly enough and grinned at Chekov almost as happily as Sam. “Right. Officer training in one afternoon. No trouble.”

Chekov couldn’t work out when Varn had changed from being his enemy to friendly toleration, but he was happy enough just to accept the transformation.

***

Liiz was feeding Tor. She always seemed to be feeding Tor. Chekov had never realised quite what a full time occupation nursing mothers had. The child had been suckling greedily when he first returned, hesitant and unsure of his welcome, at dusk. Liiz had smiled, their disagreement over lunch as easily forgotten as the row after breakfast. Perhaps that was how marriages worked. In fact, she seemed almost positively pleased to see him. As far as she could without referring to the argument, she seemed determined to make up for it. He fell in with her wishes.

“There’s some spiced sausage and bread. And there’s beer keeping cool in the cupboard. I didn’t know quite when you’d be back.”

“That will be very nice, thank you.”

“Did you do anything interesting this afternoon?”

“I let everyone know I can’t shoot, and Varn told me so much about running a squad that I can’t remember half of it.”

“Varn’s a very good second. He really knows his stuff.”

Chekov had got that impression too. “And you? Did you do anything?”

“Oh, I finished my book. Did some shopping. Had tea with a friend. Told her you said it was none of her business what we do in bed together. So now she’s wild with curiosity.”

He looked up from slicing a helping of bread. “I just don’t feel married to you. I can’t help it.”

“You’re not a virgin, are you?”

“No.” Never mind that he was near enough one for the question to make him blush.

“You don’t think I’m ugly?”

He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. “Put the baby down.”

Tor was nearly asleep. He let his mother lay him in his cot with barely a murmur. She straightened up, pulled her dress straight and rebuttoned the front. Then she pushed her hair away from her face. It was deep, chestnut brown and almost curly enough to be described as ringlets. Overall her colouring was a little alien, the skin tone too richly creamy, the eyes too yellow. She stood nearly as tall as Chekov himself, despite her bare feet, and her build was slightly plump with a clearly defined waist and pretty shoulders.

“No.”

“What sort of women do you like, then?”

“I like girls who have a sense of humour, who are intelligent but not too serious.”

She was laughing. She was always laughing at him.

“What is it?”

“Why don’t you like me then?”

“I don’t dislike you, I just don’t…”

She took the knife away from him and put the plate of food he’d prepared onto the table. “Close your eyes. Now kiss me.”

He obeyed, uncertainly. She was still Rae’s widow and the smell of milk mixed with soap and cooking was as off-putting as if he’d been kissing someone who smelt like a man.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’ll just have to wait until you’re so frustrated you’d sleep with anything.” She pushed him towards the table and his meal.

“I’ll need to wake up very early tomorrow, Liiz. How can I make sure I don’t oversleep?”

“I’ll set the alarm.”

She seemed oddly uninterested in why he had to leave so early.

“I’m going on field exercises, a manhunt of some sort,” he told her anyway.

“I know. We can go to bed early if you like.”

For once, she didn’t seem to be suggesting anything other than going to sleep and when he came out of the bathroom and joined her in bed she was pretending to be asleep already.

***

“Come in.”

Kirk pushed his chair back from his desk and looked round to see who felt it necessary to disturb him so early in the morning. Lieutenant Sulu stood nervously in the doorway. “Mister Spock said you were awake, sir.”

Kirk smiled just enough to make the helmsman feel at ease. “I gave up trying to sleep in the end. I thought if I was tired enough to really make a mess of things, we could put off leaving here for another couple of days at least.”

Sulu let the door slide shut behind him. “I’m not sure that there’s any point, sir.”

“Why? Sit down.”

The lieutenant took the seat he was offered. “Mister Spock and I spent most of yesterday getting close sensor readings of the Duke’s castle, as you requested. There were two burials just outside the castle perimeter, in what’s obviously a traditional graveyard. A single burial just after dawn, and later in the morning, two bodies were interred. Mister Spock thinks the readings we got were about seventy percent reliable. Two males and one female.”

“That’s not conclusive.”

“No. But… it is rather suggestive.”

“Why did you come to tell me this, Mister Sulu? And why now? I’ll be up on the bridge in half an hour.”

“I wondered, off the record, if you’d turn a blind eye to an exploratory expedition.”

Kirk glanced reflexively at the intercom to check it was off. “What exactly aren’t you suggesting, Lieutenant?”

“A very quick beam down, while it’s dark. There’s no moon tonight. We could take tricorder readings in seconds that would confirm one way or the other.”

“And you expect me to believe that you’d turn round and come straight back if you find that Chekov isn’t… For that matter, I’m not sure I’d just come back if it turned out that one of those bodies is his. And if he is still alive, and you’re caught, going down there could be just the excuse this Duke needs to call time on him. Quite apart from the wider implications.” Kirk shrugged apologetically. “I’m thinking out loud, and I’m tired enough to not be making sense. I do understand what you feel about this, but I’m not going to let you do anything. on or off the record, that I don’t feel you’ve thought through.”

“I want to know. That’s all. I will come straight back. You don’t even have to trust me on that. Mister Scott could pull me back out.”

“That’s the other flaw in the plan. The number of people who have to actively not know what you’re up to. You may be preserving my ignorance, but I’m going to look a bit of a fool when I have to court martial my helmsman, chief engineer and first officer for taking unauthorised action. Besides, the Klingons are back in orbit now. They’d know if you beamed down. Do you think they won’t alert the Duke, or worse?”

“I understand, Captain.”

“You’re risking his life, your life and a good deal of trouble, just to know something. I do understand, and of course I trust you to do what you say, but I can’t let you do this. Not for so little gain.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“At some point, there’ll be something the Klingons or the Trask want from us. Then we can ask for something in return.”

***

Despite an early night, Chekov wasn’t ready to wake an hour before dawn the following morning. He tried to slide out of bed without disturbing Liiz but when he re-emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, she was pouring a couple of mugs of something steamingly hot, Tor tucked under one arm.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I wanted to get up now. I’m going to feed Tor then take him up to my mother so I can have a lie in.” She stretched extravagantly and handed him his mug. “You’d better eat some bread. You’ll be hungry later.”

Chekov remembered Varn’s injunction to the squad of no rations. Presumably this exercise was to be run without refreshments. He cut a thick slice of the loaf that lived on the shelf beside the range. It was more like cake than bread, close textured and peppered with dried fruit. Liiz was smiling and humming to herself as he ate it and sipped the mug of spicy infusion. She really looked happy this morning, as if nothing had ever happened and they were the married couple they were pretending to be.

When he’d finished, she gave him a friendly kiss and pushed him off towards the door. “Go on. You don’t want to be late.”

Impulsively, he returned her kiss. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’ll be late enough.”

***

“You’ll want water,” Diek said, casting an eye over Chekov’s appearance and equipment. He didn’t seem too annoyed at being handicapped with his incompetent commander.

“Varn said last night this was all I’d need.”

“He’d have assumed you’d have thought of that for yourself. Have you got a water bottle?”

Chekov shrugged. “I don’t remember seeing one anywhere.”

“Rae must have taken his up for Liiz to clean out. You’d better go and fetch it. If you borrow someone else’s you’ll only make them late for parade while they hunt out another.”

“And I can’t afford to do that now,” Chekov agreed, remembering the sentence of lashes that was still hanging over his entire squad if anyone was late.

Diek smiled. “We really thought you were another bastard for a moment there. I’ll meet you by the East Tower gate. Then you don’t have to come all the way back here.”

Chekov slipped his arms through the straps of his pack. “Two minutes,” he promised.

The castle was still spookily silent as he hurried along the corridors, the pale glimmer of the pre-dawn sky hardly penetrating the narrow windows. But he could hear a man’s voice from his quarters. He swung the door open, expecting to see Em. Liiz was sitting on the edge of the bed and Varn was kneeling at her feet. The glow of a single lamp shone off their nakedness.

He stood there, speechless.

“Shut the door, Pavel,” Liiz said quietly.

He’d never blundered in on two people making love before and didn’t know how to deal even with that aspect of the situation. He clamped his mouth shut to stop himself apologising.

“I’m not going to apologise.” Liiz echoed his thought with uncanny accuracy.

“No. I don’t expect you to.”

“Are you going to stand there all day?” she asked calmly.

“Get out of here.” He snapped the order at his second, keeping his tone icily detached.

Varn grabbed his clothes off the floor and stepped swiftly into pants and shirt, moving towards the door all the time.

“Pavel, be sensible about this. You don’t want me and Varn does. And I want him. I won’t make trouble if you…”

“Then why did you marry me?”

She didn’t answer.

“You can’t complain about the way I behave if…”

“I had no choice.”

“Why? What’s wrong with you?” He made the question as much of an insult as he could.

“There’s nothing wrong with me. Would you really rather your captain was dead?”

“No, but…”

“Then you can’t complain either.” She wrapped a sheet from the bed around herself. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. Can a marriage be dissolved? Can I divorce you?”

“Only if you can prove you were drunk or insane when you married me.”

He remembered Diek, waiting for him at the gate. “I’m sorry I spoiled your plans. I need a water bottle. Did Rae have one?”

Holding the sheet toga-style over one shoulder, she went and fetched the bottle, filled it and handed it to Chekov. He shook it upside down to make sure the top was tight and left her.


	4. Chapter 4

Diek was lounging outside the gate. “Did you get lost?”

Then he caught the thunder in Chekov’s expression and fell silent.

“What do we do now?” Chekov demanded. He seriously doubted that there was any point in him accompanying Diek, other than that it cleared the field for Varn, but he felt like running away.

“See that ruin on the skyline, to sundown?”

Chekov looked away from the broad band of canary yellow cloud that concealed the newly risen sun. His eyes were less sharp than Diek’s, or maybe he just didn’t know what he was looking for. “No.”

“Well, anyway, it’s four twelfth’s run. But we have to go via two pick up points and whichever one we go to last, Varn will have someone there before us.”

“We could split up.”

Diek shook his head. “You want to make Varn look stupid?”

“Why should I wish to do that?” Chekov demanded suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Diek shrugged. “Rae always used to. Anyway, you wouldn’t find it. We’d better stick together.”

“Has someone given you orders to make sure I don’t escape?”

“Escape?”

“Yes, run away, try to get back to my Starship.”

Diek spat on the ground. “Come on. If we don’t start, they’ll have guards on both pick-ups.” He began to jog down the path. “The overall objective is to make the pick-ups and reach the end point, without being captured, but we also don’t want to be seen, and if we’re too slow, Varn will have someone move there directly and we’re bound to be caught. I’ll set the right pace. Tell me if you can’t keep up.”

Chekov fell in beside Diek, reflecting that the extra two percent gravity this planet was cursed with was going to begin to notice if he spent the whole day trotting over rough ground. At least the starting pace felt realistic until Diek suddenly swerved off the road and disappeared over what looked like the top of a small cliff. Chekov hesitated on the brink. The ground fell away gradually enough, but first there was a deep gully. He shrugged to himself and slid down the loose slope to the bottom. A dozen lizards shot away as he fell on his feet on a dried up river bed. He glanced round, unable to fathom where Diek had disappeared to.

“You could break an ankle doing that. Don’t they teach you to fight on solid ground in the Federation?” The voice came from somewhere above and behind him.

Chekov felt his boots carefully as Diek finished letting himself down the bank from one hand hold to the next. He’d assumed they would give his ankles as much support as the Star Fleet uniform he was used to but he realised now that they were much softer. “They give us decent equipment.”

“Well, they’d need to. You’d be no match for the Klingons on equal terms.”

“Both the Federation and Imperial cultures have advanced past the point where physical strength is of crucial importance.” Chekov picked his way cautiously along the river bed among the well rounded boulders. He was quite relieved when a clear path appeared leading diagonally up the opposite bank.

“So you rely on your technology to keep everyone else under your control.”

“The United Federation of Planets provides a mutually acceptable framework within which people can control their own lives.”

“Unless they happen to want to do business with the Klingons.”

“We will let you ally yourselves to the Klingon Empire if that is what you desire. We will probably have to pick up the pieces when you change your minds. If they don’t use this planet as a jumping off point to start a war.”

He stopped only because the steep slope robbed him of spare breath.

“Start a war?” Diek was smiling. “Do you really think they will?”

“No.” Chekov caught up with him as the path levelled out. “Why would you want them to?”

“Because I’m a soldier. I’m sick of spending every winter mending bridges and every summer helping with the harvest. I want to fight.”

“If the Klingons and the Federation go to war, do you really think you’ll be allowed to fight? The entire armed forces of the Federation represent less than one in ten thousand of the population. The proportion is higher in the Empire, because they have a more military tradition, but not by much. I promise you, if we go to war, the nearest you get to firing a weapon will be assembling it in a slave labour factory. Believe me.”

Diek spat again and speeded up a little to pull clear of Chekov. After a moment he stopped and turned round. “Is that true?”

***

The first pick up point was safely behind the two men when an ear-splitting whistle sounded with such suddenness that Chekov threw himself to the ground, grabbing for a phaser he didn’t have. 

“What is that?” The sound had a distant quality despite its loudness.

Diek merely held up a hand for quiet, his head rotating like an antenna the better to hear some signal in the shattering commotion.

“Something wrong on the river.”

“What sort of something wrong?”

Diek turned surprised eyes on his commander.

“Well, I don’t know, do I? Should we do anything? I mean, should we forget this exercise and go?”

Diek seemed unprepared to commit himself. He shifted his weight uneasily between his feet.

“What would you do if I weren’t here?”

“I’d go, but Rae… but Varn might not agree.” He shrugged. “It’d be too late by then for them to argue, but…”

“If Varn doesn’t approve, he can argue with me. We’ll go. Can you tell where exactly the problem is?”

“Yes. At the ford.” Diek was already setting off at his previous relentless pace, leading Chekov to admit to himself that his main reason for welcoming the diversion was his increasing weariness with pounding through the scratchy undergrowth under the now searing sun.

“How can you tell that?” There was no reason he could see for Trask hearing to be any more sensitively directional than his own.

“Can’t you read the horn?” Diek had stopped, plainly horrified.

“No, of course I can’t.”

“Gods, the first battle we go into with you in command, we’re going to be slaughtered.” 

Chekov started moving again, brushing past Diek impatiently. “You’re the first person that seems to have occurred to. Well done.”

Ten minutes later they were coming down onto the banks of the same river that swept in a slow, lazy meander past the castle. It was broader and slower here and on either side a road entered it. If Diek hadn’t said it was a ford, Chekov wouldn’t have believed it. The waters were thick with mud and looked deep. There were half a dozen large barges tied up by a jetty on the far bank, a couple of hundred metres away. In the centre of the river, a little way up stream, a massive craft had obviously got into difficulties. While a small group of elderly Trask and children were watching on the bank, a score of able-bodied men and women were paddling one of the barges out to the foundering boat. Another barge was already returning, laden, Chekov noted with disgust, not with any of the large number of passengers, but with cargo. 

“It’s high…” Diek muttered worriedly.

As they watched, the disabled vessel split in two with a prolonged ripping sound. One half of it stayed put, canted over at a frightening angle. The other portion abruptly turned turtle and began to move downstream, gaining speed all the time.

The water seemed to be full of floundering people.

“What’s downstream?” Chekov demanded, already struggling with his boots. The buttons popped out of their loops like a bar of soap from wet hands.

“Just a great deal of deep water.”

If they’d started slinging a boom across instead of taking that barge over… Chekov thought, then stopped. To their credit, the barge handlers were ditching cargo now, holding their position and waiting to see who was swept downstream to them. Chekov tried to work out what the current was doing. It was curving in a slow S bend, under the opposite bank by the wreck, fastest at the central point of the ford itself, then swinging over towards Chekov and Diek a little further down stream. 

He could see himself saving one or two people at most, while the rest were swept past by the relentless river.

“Will they be able to swim? Can most of your people swim?”

“They’re Barraggees,” Diek told him, his own eyes combing the banks for an answer to the problem. “But they’ll need to be strong swimmers to get to the bank.” He suddenly darted towards the water’s edge and triumphantly raised a rope’s end. Not knowing what to look for, Chekov hadn’t noticed the little skiff moored there. He jumped in behind Diek, checked that the thing had a couple of paddles — they weren’t anything he would have called oars — and told Diek to push off. Within seconds the first of the accident’s victims was upon them. Chekov kept the boat steady while Diek, with an unlooked for gift for organisation, told those who still had the energy to hang on to the side of the skiff, which obligingly sank lower in the water in response, while he hauled the plainly exhausted aboard.

“The other half’s gone,” Diek said suddenly. Chekov glanced upstream. The remains of the wreck had parted from whatever had been holding them and were bearing down on them at a frightening velocity. The first fragment had passed them, three quarters submerged, with a good few metres to spare. The second looked as if it meant to cause trouble. Chekov started to paddle back towards the shore. The boat was too overloaded to take anyone else anyway.

“No!” Diek yelled. “They’ll be past before we can get back out here.”

“But we can’t…”

“Yes. Just wait. Dodge the wreck…”

Chekov obeyed, hoping Diek was more river wise than the average Starfleet ensign. The moment the river borne missile had gone, travelling faster than its erstwhile passengers, Diek began paying out his survivors into a human chain, telling them to swim for shore.

Chekov watched him in amazement. The Barraggees certainly were good swimmers and more importantly apparently a very disciplined people. Each holding by a handful of clothes to the next in line, they paddled one handed for the bank. The foremost swimmer reached it just as the next wave of casualties hit.

The human boom worked. It held. The current was strongest where it beat on them, but that meant it was also bearing the majority of the victims right into their arms.

Most of those who came their way were doing their best to swim towards the bank anyway. Because the current brought them in so close to this shore, they were making no effort to head for the shallower, slower water on the inside of the great curve of the river. Probably that was a mistake, but on this occasion it was working for them, so long as the chain held. As its outer anchor, Chekov was concerned chiefly with paddling.

Then he noticed two multi-coloured bundles of damp fabric drifting a little behind the bulk of the casualties. They’d got into slower moving, shallower water and were going to miss the chain by fifty metres. They could have been cargo, someone’s luggage, someone’s laundry, but he thought he’d seen the pale flesh tones of a face kept afloat by air trapped in the usual loose Trask clothing.

“I think they’re children…” He thrust the paddle into Diek’s hands and finished pulling off his boots.

Diek let the paddle fall and seized his arm. “No, Pavel. Let them go. They’re not worth dying for.”

“Why? I can get them across to that beach…” He couldn’t see any other danger than the relentless, opaque water which had to get shallower and stiller beyond the pathetic little bundles.

“They’re Barraggees, Pavel. You can save them, but…”

Every second was widening the gap between the boat and the children.

Diek watched his commander dive in and start to pull strongly towards his goal.

He picked up the paddle again and handed another to one of the reviving Barraggees in the bottom of the boat. As he turned to sit down in the stern of the boat he saw Varn and the rest of the squad helping to haul one dripping body after another out onto the bank.

“He’s mad, then, is he?” his new assistant asked, nodding after Chekov. His tribal dialect was thick and strange even to Diek.

Diek shrugged. “I think so.”

It took a couple of minutes for them to make their way to the bank, gathering in the last of the swimmers as they overtook them. Varn caught the rope that Diek threw him.

“How many got past you?”

“Ten, perhaps.”

Varn nodded quickly to a couple of his men and they set off down the bank, presumably to look for anyone who’d made it to shore and needed help. “Did Pavel fall in or did you push him?”

“He went in after a pair of girl-children.”

“Oh… Oh.”

Their already drab-coloured clothes turned to uniform muddy brown, the forty or so Barraggees they’d rescued sat pathetically on the bank, barely speaking even amongst themselves. Varn noted a barge coming towards them to pick up the survivors, saw also that a similar number of victims had been rescued by the barge that had ditched its cargo, or had managed to catch hold of one of the unevenly spaced posts that marked the course of the ford and were now being picked off their precarious anchorages by other craft.

His eyes strayed to Chekov, who had found his footing in the slacker water. Either arm supporting a limp body, he was dragging himself and his burdens toward the spit of shingle that promised safety.

Diek climbed out of the boat after the last of the sodden Barraggees, bringing Chekov’s boots with him.

“He won’t need those,” Varn pointed out.

Diek tipped the right boot up and emptied out Uhura’s button hook. “He won’t need this either.”

***

The weight of the children, slight though they were, seemed to multiply tenfold as Chekov dragged them the last few metres onto dry shingle. One of them, thank God, was stirring already. The other was as still and cold as clay.

He did all the right things, then bent down to check the child’s airways were clear. He could barely stop himself pushing her away in horror. The little girl had almost no nose. Her mouth looked too small and the skin around her eyes was stretched tight, as if she was the victim of some drastic burn.

He swallowed. It crossed his mind that this might be something like leprosy but he squashed the thought. There was almost nothing she could have that McCoy couldn’t cure… Then he remembered that McCoy might not be given a chance to work his magic.

He glanced at the other child. This one was not quite so strange in appearance but the similarity suggested that a genetic factor was involved. He bent his face towards his patient and to his own shame, found that he was gagging too much to carry on. “Come on,” he snapped at himself. “She’s not as different as a Klingon, let alone some of the things I’ve seen.” That was the problem, though. She looked like a human gone wrong, like something that wasn’t meant to be. She still deserved a chance to live though, however ugly he found her. He took a deep breath and sealed his lips around the misshapen mouth. Simultaneously, his fingers found a weak pulse in the narrow wrist. He blew gently, causing her chest to rise.

Someone touched his shoulder and said something he didn’t understand. He shrugged, watched her ribs fall again and repeated the first breath. The child responded almost instantly with a fit of coughing. He sat back on his heels and turned his head. The older of the two girls — there was little doubt about their sex, no boy on Trask would wear his hair so long, or dress in so many layers of now sodden frills and ribbons — was looking warily at him.

“My father will kill you for this.”

***

Chekov assumed he’d misunderstood her. She seemed to have a speech impediment, unsurprisingly given her other facial deformities, and a strong accent in addition.

She cradled her friend, or perhaps her sister, in her mud-streaked arms. Chekov looked round to see if anyone was coming to help. The girls needed dry clothes at the very least. To his relief, a handful of natives were hurrying along the shore towards him.

He heard a boat grounding on the shingle behind him and climbed stiffly to his feet. Varn had jumped out and was hauling the little craft clear of the water. He kept his distance from the girls and nodded politely to Chekov. “That was a neat piece of work.”

“Diek did most of it.”

“I know.” Varn coughed and began to whistle tunelessly.

The shingle grated noisily under the boots of the arriving rescuers. They were adult Barraggees, bearded and carrying weapons. One came forward to act as spokesman.

“What happened?”

“This man pulled us out of the water, Elder. And he kissed Toosha. She wasn’t breathing, I think.”

The elder looked at Chekov. “Who are you?”

If these people had been anything other than Barraggees, he’d have given his own name, maybe seized the opportunity to ask for help. “Rae, Em’s son. A place man of the Duke of Eaye.”

“Why did you do it?” The man seemed genuinely puzzled.

“They would have drowned. They were…”

“But now I have to kill you.”

“What?” This man also had a thick accent but his meaning was unmistakable.

Varn looked as if he were fighting a battle with himself and losing. “Elder, he doesn’t know your customs…”

“Everyone knows that no one of another tribe may touch the daughters of a Barraggee Elder. I’m sorry, but…”

“He’s a Federation officer. The Duke took him because he killed Rae, Em’s son when he was unarmed, although it was an accident. Believe me, he doesn’t know your customs. He thought only of saving lives. His actions also saved forty of your men and boys.” He gestured across the water to the opposite bank, where the barge was pulling away, loaded with the beneficiaries of Chekov’s philanthropy.

“Custom is sacred. No one of another tribe may touch the daughters of a Barraggee Elder.” The Barraggee didn’t seem pleased about this, but there was an implacability in the way he repeated himself that didn’t bode well for the ensign. “A Federation Officer, you say?”

Chekov nodded tiredly. He couldn’t see how that helped. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the Barraggees moved to encircle him and Varn, cutting off any prospect of escape, not that he had the energy.

“The penalty for the man of another tribe who touches the daughters of a Barraggee Elder is death,” one of the other Barraggees pointed out helpfully. Chekov glanced at him, noting that he was a beardless youth with the same disfigurement that marked the two girls.

“Custom is sacred,” the Elder mused aloud, “and yet…”

One of the children coughed and he suddenly seemed to notice that they were shivering. He took off his heavy striped coat and knelt down to help the youngster out of her wet clothes. Another of the men followed suit. A third looked at Chekov. By sheer force of will he managed to still his own trembling.

“Light a fire.”

They gathered a small heap of driftwood from the pebble beach. Chekov moved a couple of paces nearer to Varn, so that they could talk.

“What are they going to do?”

“I don’t know…”

“Come here!” The elder, less impressive without his full length coat but still clearly an authority figure, beckoned imperiously.

Chekov made one last assessment of his chances of escape. If he could have relied on Varn… but that was wishful thinking. He approached the Barraggee.

The elder took hold of the charm that Chekov still wore on its leather thong round his neck and pulled it off with a sharp tug. “Blasphemous trash!”

Chekov didn’t comment. Certainly the ugly little idol hadn’t brought him any luck that he’d noticed.

He watched as the man fetched a short, rusty knife out of a pocket and decided that he was going to make a run for it. Being hacked down in a struggle had to be less painful than any method of execution involving that weapon. He tensed then realised he’d left it too late to escape. His arms had been gripped by two of the bystanders.

The Barraggee dug the blade into the ball of his own thumb and squeezed out a respectable amount of blood. Then he dropped the knife on the shingle and smeared the blood over Chekov’s forehead.

He was released amidst polite applause and turned, bewildered, to Varn. His second suddenly smiled.

“What’s he doing?” Chekov demanded, as if the Barraggees couldn’t understand him. It flashed through his mind that he’d been marked, and now they were going to hunt him down like an animal.

“The trouble was, you weren’t a Barraggee…”

“I know that.”

“Well, now you are.”

***

The little fire of driftwood soon grew to a massive conflagration. As the cargo of the boat was salvaged, it and the sodden rescuees were arranged around the blaze to dry. The runners sent down the river came back with two survivors and reports of having sighted four bodies, trapped in tangled logs and weeds where the river widened out into a lake with a deep muddy bottom. A boat was despatched to recover them but for the moment the Barraggees seemed more minded to celebrate the living than mourn the dead.

Chekov’s squad, exhausted from hauling waterlogged crates and bundles out of the river, stripped down to their pants and stretched the rest of their uniforms out on the stones to dry. The Barraggees brought them a share of the food and wine that was being handed around. In large numbers their strange appearance became more strongly repellent. Chekov had to force himself not to look away from this tribe of Klingon-lovers who had now decided to take their new brother to their hearts. Among the passengers on the boat, only the two little girls seemed to have the untouchable status that had nearly got him killed. There were only a handful of females otherwise, but they were happily mixing with the Duke’s soldiers and the other locals who had joined in the salvage effort. None of his men seemed to find the women’s appearance in the least off-putting.

Chekov found himself in receipt of a dozen offers of hospitality from Barraggee families. Every time one of their large bottles of sweet, resinous wine was opened, the first measure was offered to Rae, Em’s son. He accepted the first couple of times, then Diek laughingly assured him, “It’s not rude to say no. You’ve got to hike back to the castle yet.”

Eventually, the food and wine were spent. The Barraggees began to gather up their belongings. Their leader approached Chekov apologetically. “Rae, Em’s son, our families will send another craft for us and the people who live by the river have offered us shelter for the night. Our thanks for your help today. Should you ever have business among your brothers the Barraggees, I would be honoured to offer you a place under my roof.”

Chekov climbed wearily to his feet. Diek had given him back his boots but Uhura’s button hook was lost, presumably somewhere in the river. For some reason the small loss hurt disproportionately. He did his best to return the man’s goodwill. “Thank you. I will remember your kindness.”

“Toosha, Naleet!” The two girls came running up, their finery dried and apparently none the worse for its sousing in the river. Both gave the ensign an enthusiastic hug and kiss. He shut his eyes but he could still feel their ugliness. Then he realised that he didn’t feel sick at them, but at his own reaction. He put his arms round both of the little girls together and forced himself to smile at them. If Eaye had been a Barraggee, he’d have been back on the Enterprise by now.

“I would like to be a Barraggee when those two have grown up!” Diek said enthusiastically as the children departed with the Elder. He turned to look at Chekov but his commander was struggling with the buttons on his boots, cursing the loops.

“I found this in the boat.”

Chekov looked up. Diek was holding out the button hook. The ensign didn’t take it immediately. “You think those girls are pretty?”

Diek shrugged, embarrassed. “Yes, don’t you?”

“They’re like… My mother had a very old doll made of gutta-percha, a type of rubber, a plant resin, I think. It was so old, its face was worn almost smooth. I used to have bad dreams about it. It looked just like a Barraggee.”

“Then when you saw all those Barraggees, you must have thought your nightmares were coming true.”

Chekov took the hook and fastened up his boots, then walked down to the edge of the river. After a moment, he began picking stones up and flinging them as far out into the stream as he could.

***

“How odd.” Varn was reading a notice pinned to the squad room door. Behind Chekov eight tired, dirty men jostled, anxious to dump their kit and disappear to their bunks or their wives.

Chekov pushed Varn out of the way and opened up the door. “It can wait, can’t it?”

He put his own kit bag down on one of the benches and stretched cramped, sore shoulders.

“It’s for you anyway.” Varn handed it to him and Chekov looked at it. Despite the almost universal use of Standard on duty, notices were still laboriously penned in Trask pictograms. He was learning to interpret Liiz’s notes, and labels on the bottles and packets that turned up at meal times, but even this short, two line message was beyond him. “What does it say?”

“The Duke wanted to see you a twelfth after sunset. I suggest you go and apologise for being late.”

Chekov just stood there, too exhausted to begin to know how to deal with this new complication. Varn watched him for a moment.

“Sam, put the Commander’s kit away. In good order, mind. Get all the mud off everything. Come on, Pavel. I know where to find him. It’s not your fault we were late back.”

Chekov let Varn steer him out of the squad room, into the corridor, but broke away from the man’s controlling arm once they were out of earshot of his men. There was no further need for the uneasy truce they’d maintained all afternoon. “I can find my own way, thank you.”

“Don’t be a fool. This is trouble. I knew something was wrong the moment we came into the castle. I smell Klingons. And you’re too tired to think on your feet. You need me…”

“I would have thought you would have preferred me to be discovered by the Klingons.”

Varn frowned. “Only in theory.” He pushed open a small door that led, to Chekov’s complete surprise, into a dark corner of the big hall. Away at the far end, the Duke was sitting at a table with half a dozen others. He looked up at Varn’s apologetic cough.

“Excuse me, gentlemen…”

Eaye strode down the hall and took Chekov by the shoulder. “Where in Trask have you been?” he demanded in a fierce whisper.

“On manoeuvres, my Lord…”

“We were training near the river, sir,” Varn interrupted, “and a barge capsized. There were casualties. We helped to rescue civilians and to recover goods.”

The Duke looked from one man to the other and shook his head. “Varn, go and tell his wife he’ll be up in an hour. She’d better have a hot meal and a warm bed waiting for him.”

Varn couldn’t quite meet Chekov’s eyes. “I’ll pass the message on, my lord,” he said carefully and disappeared back into the shadows.

“Come on. Just say the minimum. I’ll explain things later.”

As they neared the table, Chekov realised that Varn had been correct. Of the six figures seated at the table, four were Klingon. His hand itched for a phaser and had to be content to rest on the hilt of his sword.

“These officers have some questions for you. And remember, Pavel Em’s son. I’ve told them you’re one of my best officers. Even if you are somewhat tardy on occasion. Don’t let me down.”

The largest of the four kicked his chair away from the table. Chekov recognised General Kress, the most senior of the Imperial officers known to be involved in the present situation, and his heart, just calming at the message from Eaye that he wasn’t about to be interrogated as a Federation prisoner, began to thump again.

“Do you speak Standard?”

“Yes, General.”

“You read it too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Klingonaase?”

“A little, sir. I can read more than I speak or follow in conversation.”

“Tell me. What do you know of warp technology?”

The question and answer session continued, with Chekov trying desperately to remember just how little he ought to know on subjects as diverse as sub-space communications and Klingon history. He peppered his answers with mistakes that raised belly laughs from the Klingons. After nearly an hour fear had given way to dull exhaustion and he almost wanted to be found out.

The General turned to one of the other Klingons, as if seeking a second opinion. The officer nodded. “He’ll do,” Kress said negligently. “For the moment.”

“My lord?” Chekov appealed to the Duke who had been silent throughout.

“The new Eastern Alliance, having been recognised by the Federation as the legitimate government, and having asked them to withdraw their presence on Keera III, has signed a treaty with the Klingons. Under that treaty, General Kress here is responsible for — assisting the local authorities in restoring order. He has requested a local aide, to help in his liaison work. Or to put it another way, you are a hostage for my good behaviour.”

“No, Duke. That is not the case. You’re too suspicious. I am genuinely very short staffed. Our inability to bring in personnel during the Federation blockade, and the need now to take advantage of their withdrawal and start work again in so many areas, has left us almost paralysingly short of junior officers. Particularly capable ones. Your cooperation in providing us with the resources we need to set up a regional base here in this castle will be appreciated, Duke.”

The Klingon he’d earlier consulted suddenly spoke up. “We do not expect the question of hostages to arise.”

Both Chekov and the Duke knew a threat when they heard it.

“By noon tomorrow, you are to have organised accommodation for twenty four, to work and sleep. Provisioning, communication facilities, security — Commander Drak here will review that tomorrow. Once that is done, you will prepare a directory of the local chieftains, with a brief resume of their current political flavour and their influence. I dare say everyone has changed sides since I last sat at this table. I also need precise and up-to-date details of all Federation activity in this region. Who has worked with them, who benefits from it, the best way to take over control with minimum disruption and so forth. Is that understood?”

“Yes, General.”

“Good.” Kress took out a communicator and ordered beam up, as his officers rose and joined him. The other two participants at the meeting also found their feet and came over to the Duke. He whistled up a servant, who stood by to see them out.

“You’ve got what you wanted,” he said bitterly, to a man Chekov recognised as a Barraggee. The inbred resemblance was just as strong as it had been among the passengers on the boat. This could have been the father of the little girls he’d rescued.

“We’ve dealt with Klingons. We know them. We want their technology and they want a foothold in this part of the galaxy. We respect each other. It suits everyone.” He turned to Chekov and gave the odd, two handed salute that the ensign had seen exchanged among the Barraggees all afternoon. “Good luck in your new job, brother.”

As the servant saw the two of them out, Eaye began dousing the lamps around the table.

“The Federation has withdrawn?” Chekov asked, as calmly as he could.

“Yes. Or at least agreed to commence a phased withdrawal. Over a period of a half tide.”

“Why me?”

“What?”

“Why have you put me in this position? I can’t work for the Klingons…”

“Do you object as a member of the Federation, or as a place man of the Duke of Eaye?”

“Sir, this is an occupying force. He’s going to use your castle as a bridgehead. He…”

“Pavel, do you think I don’t know this?”

“No, sir.”

“There is no one, among my officers, other than you, who can find out exactly what is happening, understand its implications and report back to me quickly and reliably. If Kress takes his occupying force elsewhere, I will lose even that small advantage. I’m relying on you, Pavel Em’s son. Not as a Federation officer, for you are no longer that, but as my man. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. You’d better go and get some sleep. I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow.”

***

Outside the hall, most of the narrow corridors and stairways were dark, the lamps that lit them through the evening burnt out. Chekov found one that still guttered and took it with him. He couldn’t see much point in going back to Liiz but he still didn’t know what else to do. And it didn’t look as he was going to have the leisure to worry about it.

As he started up the twisting stair, he heard anxious voices and the thin, ragged cries of a baby at the far end of tiredness. The door of their apartment was open and Liiz sat with her mother and father and Rae’s mother. He coughed apologetically. The grandparents melted away, leaving him with the firm impression that Liiz had been told to sort this out. He didn’t give her the chance. “I’m not going to talk about this now.” He pulled a couple of heavy covers off the bed and threw them onto the floor in the corner.

“We need to talk, Pavel…”

Chekov shook his head. “Not tonight. I’m much too tired. And I’m going to be too busy tomorrow. I would be very grateful if you would find me somewhere else to stay after that. But for tonight…”

“Please, Pavel, don’t do this to us.” Liiz clutched her child closer and the boy let out a particularly miserable screech.

Chekov shrugged. “I didn’t want to marry you. You obviously didn’t want to marry me. Let’s admit it was a mistake. Or can’t we do that? Do we have to go on with this stupid pretence?”

“You don’t understand…”

He turned on her, all his exhaustion flaring up in anger. “I do understand. I understand very plainly that you have made a fool of me, and what makes it worse, you’ve chosen to do it with someone I have to work with.” He pulled a bolster off the bed and tossed that onto the floor as well. “Oh, what am I talking about? Why the hell shouldn’t you sleep with Varn if you want to? It just seems so ridiculous. Why couldn’t you have married him?”

Tor had suddenly fallen asleep, and Liiz was bending over the cradle, being very careful not to wake him as she laid him down.

She straightened and looked Chekov in the eye for the first time since he came in.

“Look, Pavel. I’m really sorry…”

“That you did it, or that I found out?”

“That you found out. I don’t think you care if I’m unfaithful to you.”

“I said I’d do my best to make this work…” he objected defensively, surprised to find that he did care.

“You don’t intend to make it work at all. You’re just getting by from day to day until your friends find a way to get you back.”

“The Federation is withdrawing. And they’ve recognised the Eastern Alliance as the legitimate authority, so it’s very likely they’re not going to…”

He stopped before his voice could betray him.

“So you’re stuck here.”

He nodded mutely.

“You always were stuck, anyway. The Duke wouldn’t have let you go. On principle. He’d have seen you dead before he’d have handed you over.”

“Captain Kirk would have found some way to persuade him.”

“Well, it’s pointless to speculate, isn’t it?”

He nodded again.

“Pavel…”

“Yes?”

“You mustn’t tell people, about me and…”

“Varn.” He said the name firmly, as if to prove that he could without losing his temper. “Do you think I’m likely to? Don’t worry. But…”

“What?”

“It’s awkward, that he’s my second-in-command. Could he…”

“What?”

“Could he get transferred to another squad, or might he be promoted, or…”

She shook her head disbelievingly, as if he’d suggested that Varn might sprout wings and fly. “No.” She picked up the covers and put them back on the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m so sorry for all of this. Don’t sleep on the floor.”


	5. Chapter 5

Chekov woke early, at the first skirl of screeching bird song from the flocks of starling-like scavengers that roosted on the castle battlements. Liiz still slept, her head nestled in the crook of his arm. He lay there for a while, wondering at his complete lack of feeling for her. All along the length of their bodies her skin was pressed next to his, her flesh moulding warmly against his. It he woke her, if he caressed her…

Liiz opened her eyes.

“Pavel?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you for not making me sleep on the floor.” He’d started to get out of bed, curling his toes up at the first touch on the cold stone flags.

“It’s ever so early still. Where are you going?”

“A new job. I am now liaison officer to General Kress.”

“Oh. I should think that’s going to take some getting used to. Well, maybe you’ll discover that the Klingons aren’t as bad as you’ve been told.”

“Liiz, you can’t really want the Klingons…”

“Pavel, for the past four hundred tides, the Klingons have been helping us to develop our technology and change our society from a mess of tribes, constantly at one another’s throats, into a global force, ready to move out into space. And they’ve enabled us to build engineering projects that have turned the deserts of this planet into farmland, turned famine on its head, made drought a thing of the past… and what happens? The Federation comes along and says we’re in their backyard and throws the Klingons out. All the infrastructure we’ve invested years and most of our output in is sitting there half-finished and the Federation is saying, sorry, Trask, we can’t help you get this working. That would be interfering…”

“It’s for your own protection, Liiz. You should only have technology that you can sustain yourselves. Otherwise you’re nothing but hostages…”

“Given a choice between your consciences and Klingon realism, I know which I’d rather be a hostage to.”

“We were going to help you implement the projects you really needed, in ways that you could control…”

“And who says what we need and what we can control? You do.”

“You haven’t seen all the worlds where this sort of interference goes wrong…”

“We don’t need to. We’ve seen famine and plague and civil war here for ourselves.” She padded across to fetch the baby who was beginning to make soft, happy gurgles. “You’re entitled to your opinion, of course,” she said severely, “but you won’t find many people here who share it. Particularly not among your new colleagues.”

“You mean I’d better learn to keep my opinions to myself.”

She’d begun to put breakfast out on the table, still carrying the baby draped lengthways along her arm in a fashion that looked oddly comfortable. Chekov, in two minds over whether he had time to eat, compromised by starting to get dressed and taking mouthfuls between garments.

“Maybe when they start throwing their weight around inside the castle, you’ll change your minds.”

“What?”

“General Kress is setting up his headquarters here. In the castle. That’s why I have to start early today, getting it all sorted out… What’s so funny?”

She was smiling for no reason that he could see.

“What in Trask are you going to do if the Federation withdrawal turns nasty, Pavel?”

“It won’t. If the government has asked us to leave…”

“And you’re being such a good little Klingon officer now…”

He wasn’t sure if she was teasing him or not. “I’m only doing what the Duke requires. As I promised I would. He won’t put me in a position where I’d have to… where my loyalty would be in doubt. It wouldn’t make sense.”

“He will put you in exactly that position, if I know him.”

***

By midday, Chekov had agreed accommodation, furnished it, set up communication links and found domestic staff to service the General’s headquarters. Now he was marking time, waiting on Kress’ arrival. He turned with a start at the sound of someone coming into what would be the General’s office. The Duke, with Varn trailing a respectful three paces behind him, circled the room, inspecting the facilities.

“Very nice. I hope he’ll like it. You’ve annoyed every single one of my senior officers with your demands on their men and equipment, but I dare say you want them to be as antipathetic to the Klingons as possible.” The Duke ran a finger fussily over the broad tiled sill of the window and Chekov instinctively began to review all the other flat surfaces in the room. He’d told someone to clean them but he hadn’t followed up and checked it had been done.

“Pavel!”

Chekov spun guiltily to see what the Duke wanted. “Sir?”

“Has it occurred to you that one thing they’ll want is women?”

“No. I hadn’t thought about that, sir.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

The ensign could only stare at Eaye in horrified silence. “I d…don’t know, sir,” he stammered out eventually. Star Fleet training was broad but didn’t run to pimping for occupying forces.

The Duke laughed. “If anyone asks you, direct them to Xeris. He’s a master of all the distasteful trades. Very good, Pavel, Em’s son. Now, since you seem to have a few spare moments, you need to think about your squad.”

“Yes, sir. I asked Varn to deputise for me this morning, but I wasn’t sure what arrangements I should make in the long term…”

“He’ll have to deputise for you as long as necessary. And you’ll have to find a few minutes to check up on him now and then. Although I’m sure he can manage perfectly well. I’ll leave you two to discuss the details.” The Duke strode out, leaving Chekov to face his wife’s lover alone.

“I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Chekov said shortly.

“Oh, at least as well as you do.” Varn looked at least as uncomfortable as Chekov too.

***

The first of the Klingons to arrive was Drak, with a small team of officers who installed communications devices and other electronic equipment and used hand-held sensors to check over every centimetre of the accommodation allotted to them. Drak paced around the offices and rooms while they worked, requiring Chekov to shadow him, firing questions at the ensign and ripping his answers to shreds. Their tour finished outside on the sun-blasted parade ground. It was deserted. The Trask were taking their siesta or eating in the cool shade of their apartments. Drak stood in his heavy armour, bright light reflecting off the studs and plates, like a reptile taking a sun bath.

“The accommodation is adequate,” he said. It was the first positive opinion he’d voiced in two hours. Chekov stood warily silent.

“What’s your name?”

“Pavel, Em’s son, Commander.”

“The Duke said you were Rae… He’s your brother?”

“No, uh, I use both names. Most people call me Pavel. It’s a…”

“Familiar form?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And where are you from? Not local, by your accent.”

“From Hxharra, sir.” He was ready for that. The Duke had suggested that Hxharra was a place of such apocryphal obscurity and eccentricity, no behaviour would be too bizarre for one of its natives.

“Hxharra?”

“In the Southern provinces, Commander.”

“The Southern provinces? Where support for the Federation has been strongest, in the past…”

“Not in Hxharra, Commander.”

“And where do your loyalties lie, Lieutenant?”

Chekov blinked at his sudden promotion. The use of Standard, however, necessitated the adoption of Federation ranks. And it was, he supposed, appropriate that the liaison officer of a General should be at least a lieutenant.

“With the Duke of Eaye, Commander.”

“And where, exactly, do the Duke’s loyalties lie?”

Chekov swallowed. He didn’t know the answer to that, and he certainly had no authority to express an opinion.

“That isn’t for me to say.”

“When I ask you a question, you may assume that it is proper for you to answer.”

“I believe the Duke intends to cooperate fully with the program agreed between the Eastern Alliance and the Klingon High Command.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. Because if he doesn’t, you’ll be the first to die for it. But by no means the last. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Perfectly, Commander.”

“Unless, of course, General Kress has reason to believe you are more use to him as a live supporter than a dead hostage.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are. I can tell by the way you’ve set up this HQ that you’ve got more brains than the average Trask. A little more imagination, more vision. And I know that you want to work with us, don’t I? You can see where this is going. The Duke is… a fine warrior, I’m sure, in the old style. But he’ll object to many of the rational advances we want to make on Trask. He’s too much of a traditionalist. Like the majority of your petty nobles. Living in the past. They’ve the sense to throw the Federation out, but that’s only the first step. You can see that.”

“Sir?”

“Oh, don’t bleat at me like an old woman. Think about what I’ve said. Trask isn’t important enough to us to justify maintaining a large garrison. A few intelligent local people could save us a good deal of expense, and do very well out of it for themselves. Is the summit of your ambition to be the tenant of a provincial War Lord? You could be governor of this world, Lieutenant, in another fifteen years. Does that idea appeal to you?”

“I have no ambition to…”

“Are you married?”

“No… uh, yes.”

Drak’s mouth quirked into a cynical smile. “Make up your mind. And I dare say you have at least one child already.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can’t you see how this tradition of early marriage is used to cement you into place? A place man. It’s a good title. You know your place. You defend your place. You never lift your eyes to look beyond your place. And you won’t stray from home for fear another man will slip between your sheets. It’s pathetic. But I know things about you that make your marriage a mockery, don’t I? And I know things that mean your loyalty to the Duke is a sham. But don’t worry. Do as I say and your secrets are just that. Secrets.”

That promise was thrown out almost casually, but Drak kept his eyes on Chekov all the while.

The ensign’s head was spinning. If Drak knew who he really was, this didn’t make sense. And if the Klingon didn’t know that, what did he think he knew? Everything was terrible enough and then it was twisted somehow to make it worse.

General Kress came to his rescue by appearing out of nowhere a few feet away. The Klingon stood and surveyed the parade ground, the afternoon sun glinting off his high, rugged brow.

“Well, Drak, has he done what I asked him to?”

“I don’t believe he’s started the intelligence work yet, General.”

“And everything else?”

“Everything else is adequate, General.”

“Hm.” Kress put a heavy hand on Chekov’s shoulder and turned him round forcibly to face the door into the Klingon headquarters. “Time I introduced you to my methods.”

***

If the morning had involved hard physical labour and the strain of organising unfamiliar personnel to do things neither Chekov nor they were entirely sure about, the afternoon offered no respite.

Kress seemed to have nothing better to do than ask Chekov to repeat one task after another in search of some elusive gold standard of performance. Everything he’d thought he knew about Klingon military custom proved inaccurate. Everything he’d heard unofficially about their tempers turned out, in Kress’ case, to have been understated.

The third time he’d presented a preliminary report on the extent of Federation activity in the province, and had it thrown back at him for failing to meet yet another of Kress’ unstated criteria, Chekov lost his own temper.

“Perhaps you should ask someone else to do this for you, General. Clearly you are correct in thinking me an illiterate peasant.”

Kress got out of his chair and came round to the other side of the generous desk Chekov had found for him.

“If I think you are capable of performing the undemanding role of liaison officer, then you are capable of performing it.” The General twisted both of Chekov’s arms behind his back and used the leverage this gave him to force the Russian’s head down onto the table. “Get my short sword, Drak.”

The commander, who had watched the increasing tension between the two officers with poorly concealed amusement, did as he was asked.

Chekov clenched his jaw shut and prayed that Kress only intended to use the weapon in the obvious way on the obvious target and not too many times. A Klingon short sword was heavy, even out of its sheath. Even if Kress only wanted to humiliate him, this was going to hurt.

“If you want him to work for us, General, would it not make more sense to treat him with the respect due a Klingon officer, rather than beating him like a peasant?” Drak objected lightly.

“When he’s earned it,” Kress growled, “I’ll give him all the respect he wants.”

“But, General, you don’t teach someone to be a man by treating him as a child. Let me take him outside and…”

“Is there a problem?” The Duke of Eaye’s easy, cultured tones broke into the argument. His hands still clamping Chekov’s wrists, Kress straightened up.

“Duke, this is my office. If you wish to speak with me…”

“I should deal with your liaison officer. However, he seems to be otherwise occupied.”

“What do you want?” Kress demanded irritably.

“I simply wondered if everything was to your satisfaction, and if you wished to join me for dinner tonight.”

“You come to ask such questions yourself?”

“I happened to be passing. I’m also expecting a call from the Enterprise. They don’t seem able to accept my assurances that I am happier dealing with our Klingon allies. I thought if they actually saw…”

Kress laughed so much he almost released his hold on the ensign. Chekov, his heart in his mouth, turned his head enough to be able to see the Duke.

“Expecting a call? That sounds a tolerably friendly arrangement.” The voice that said this was poisonously smooth. Chekov was becoming convinced that Drak was far cleverer than Kress. But both, as far as he could tell, were equally unpleasant.

Taleek, the communications technician, who had installed a large bank of equipment in the corner of the office and remained with it like a broody hen all afternoon now spoke up. “The Enterprise is hailing the Duke.”

Kress repositioned one large hand to hold Chekov’s wrists more securely and with his other hand reached over to return the Russian’s head to its former position.

“Put it through. He can take it here.”

“Captain Kirk, what can I do for you?”

“Lord Duke?” Chekov thought that Kirk sounded slightly taken aback, but he put this down mistakenly to the presence of Klingons in the screen. He didn’t know that Eaye had been refusing for over sixty hours to accept the Enterprise’s hails. “As you will be aware, the Eastern Alliance has asked the Federation to withdraw, and we have agreed a timetable of eleven days…”

“A half tide, yes, I know, to clear your remaining personnel and equipment.” Eaye sounded bored.

“Among the personnel not accounted for is Ensign Chekov…”

“I assure you, Captain Kirk, he is accounted for. You can speak to the man who killed him, to the surgeon who pronounced him dead and to the men who buried him. You can, if you wish, visit his grave and that of Lieutenant Berg. Unfortunately Trask custom and public health ordinances do not permit the exhumation of corpses. Further, I can assure you that he met his end with a fortitude I would be proud to find among my own officers. Do you wish…”

“Eaye, you cannot allow this Kirk to beam down on the flimsy pretext of searching for a dead officer!” It was Kress who interrupted Eaye’s bluff exactly on time. “He wants military intelligence, not dead meat.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, but it appears that my current guests are nervous at the prospect of meeting you. In the interests of continued peace and cooperation, perhaps it would be better if you stayed away. Do you require a copy of the death certificate?”

Chekov could hardly bear to keep quiet, even though he knew all too well that to do anything to directly alert Kirk to his presence would only make the Duke’s fictions promptly come true. He struggled under Kress’ grip and the General responded by twisting his ear until he yelped.

“You had a Federation officer, from the Enterprise, in your hands and you simply killed him?” Again, it was Drak’s disapproving tones that struck cold into Chekov’s bones.

“What should I have done with him?” Eaye asked calmly. “Given him to you?”

“He would have made a useful bargaining piece. If it happens again, you should ask a price before you call for your knifeman.”

“He’d done nothing to deserve that.” Eaye’s tone was openly contemptuous and Chekov felt Kress dig his fingers harder into his flesh in response.

“Cut the channel.” Kress clearly didn’t care to have Kirk witness anything less than perfect harmony between Klingons and natives. “Get up.”

It took Chekov a moment to realise that the order was addressed to him. He straightened and found himself face to face with the Duke.

“Is Pavel not proving satisfactory?”

“He’s ignorant and impudent.”

“Would you rather he was sly and conciliatory?”

Kress seemed put out by Eaye’s own impudence. “He should learn to respect his betters.”

“I’m sure when he meets one, he will. Thank you for the use of your commsystem, General. Shall I look forward to the pleasure of recounting feats of battle with you tonight?”

Kress laughed belatedly, as if he’d decided to go along with the Duke’s facade of jovial good fellowship. “I shall be pleased to accept your hospitality.”

Klingon General and Trask nobleman walked over to the door together, but Drak promptly turned to the technician and his screens. “Get me the Fayzhal.”

“Sir. I am hailing now. His Captain will speak to you.”

“Khloshen? Some advice for you… I’m concerned about Kirk. He has some plan under way. I think you should suggest to the Alliance that they request all communications with Federation officials be made through them in future. All use of transporters to be cleared in advance. Any breaches of these directives to be brought to the General’s attention. And let the Enterprise know she’s watched. We’re more interested in preventing trouble than retaliating — for now. Understood?”

The Captain of the Fayzhal responded to Drak’s ’advice’ with surprising docility.

“You’re wondering why a Captain takes the orders of a Commander?” Drak asked. Chekov started guiltily. He hadn’t realised that Drak was watching him.

“Naval ranks do not correspond to those of land forces?” he suggested innocently.

“No,” Drak corrected patiently. “Sooner or later, Kress will make an error and I will have to remove him. Everyone knows this, even Kress himself. Those who think it will be sooner act accordingly. I advise you to do likewise.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When that time comes, I will allow you to revenge yourself for the way he humiliated you today.”

“Sir?”

“To make you cry out in front of the human scum. I’m sure he only surprised you, but still…”

Chekov forced himself to stand still and look Drak in the eye. The intensity of that eye nearly defeated him.

“I can’t trust you if you’re afraid of pain and I’ve already told you too much, if I can’t trust you.”

“I’m not afraid of pain.”

“I believe the Trask skin their enemies alive.”

“Yes, sir…”

“I’ve never seen it done. Have you?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Describe it to me.”

***

“You’re shaking.” Liiz dropped her book on the settle, leaving the mechanism humming faintly to itself, and took hold of his hands. “What’s happened?”

“Drak made me…”

“What?”

He shrugged out of his leather over-jacket, revealing a bloodstained shirt. With a little gasp she rolled up the wide sleeves of the shirt itself.

“Klingon warrior marks! These are going to look so good when they heal up. Did he use the traditional knives?”

Her fingers traced the elaborate pattern and he flinched away from her. “Liiz, it hurts!”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby.” Her words were unsympathetic but she tempered them by handing him the half-finished mug of beer that was on the arm of the settle. “There, that’ll deaden the pain. And you’d better sit down. You’re pale enough ordinarily.”

“You have to just stand there. If you move or make a sound, you’re a coward and they can kill you.” He downed the warm, flat beer in a series of thirsty gulps.

“Yes, I know. Do you want your lunch? I thought you weren’t coming back for it today.”

“I couldn’t eat anything. I thought you might… Would you find me some bandages, Liiz?”

“Don’t you know anything? If you cover it up it won’t scar half as clearly. You’re really lucky. Most Trask boys do it when they’re too young to cut deep enough. These are going to look brilliant.” She smiled at him encouragingly.

“I don’t want Klingon warrior marks all over my arms. It hurts. And I need a clean shirt…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. A few more baskets of washing are just buckets to the river.” She fetched what he wanted and helped him remove the old shirt with a tenderness that took him by surprise. “It’s not bleeding much now. They’ll have scabbed over by tonight. Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? You didn’t have much breakfast and that was at sun up.”

“No.” He buried his face in his hands, the fresh shirt on his lap.

She stood over him for a moment, then knelt down by his feet. “Would you like to make love, Pavel?”

“No. How can you…”

“I don’t think I can be unfaithful to my lover with my husband. And you are my husband. Sooner or later, you have to accept that. You’re going to spend the rest of your life here.”

“Not yet. The Enterprise hasn’t given up yet…”

“They think you’re still alive?”

“I don’t know,” he faltered. “But they don’t know that I’m dead, and they won’t stop looking for me until they do, or until they’re forced to leave.”

“Then I won’t insist for another nine days. That’s when the half tide’s up, isn’t it, and they have to go?”

“But Varn…”

“He’s a head taller than you and yellow as straw. Bastard children are no use to me or my father. I need sons, and so do you and so does the Duke for that matter.”

“Oh.” Puzzled as he was by Liiz’s attitude to him, he hadn’t considered the complications introduced by a society that used heredity not merely to control property but also to lead its armies and order its professions. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t marry Varn…”

“Because his father is a peasant.”

“What was Rae’s father then?”

“This really isn’t any of your business…”

“What if my father was a peasant?” He wondered if it would be stretching a point to describe a geothermal engineer as a son of the soil.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re whatever Rae was.”

“I should go back to work.” He felt a sudden, sleepy desire to let her hold him and fought it off. He had no intention of doing anything that suggested his fate here was settled already. If, when nine days were up, he was still here, then he’d make the best of it with Liiz, but not before. It was too easy, he told himself, to only think about his problems. She was a widow with a small child to care for. Presumably she was only doing what was in her own best interests. It would be unfair to take advantage of her by behaving as if he had any intention of staying. He stood up, cautiously pulled the clean shirt on and bent over the crib to glance at the sleeping baby on the way out.

***

“What’s that?”

McCoy, with his customary lack of ceremony, had walked unannounced into the briefing room where Kirk was sorting through his notes after a progress meeting with Russell.

The captain flicked his eyes across to see what McCoy was referring to. “You interested in doing a comparative study of death certificates?”

“They didn’t…” McCoy picked up the two pieces of paper, with attached notarised translations. “They must have the souls of civil servants…”

“Klingon civil servants. Read the cause of death section.”

“You believe them?” McCoy put the certificates down again.

Kirk switched the computer off. “I could almost believe the Duke. He was showing off to the Klingons, but… I think if he wanted to be cruel, he’d let us think Chekov was alive, not the other way about.”

“Well, I… I’m sure Chekov knew what he was doing. All you can decently do is be grateful.”

“I don’t want to be grateful. It was my mistake. He told me there was no armed force threatening us. I should have trusted his judgement.”

Since there was no obvious answer to that, McCoy said nothing. After a moment, the silence became too uncomfortable. “Jim, being captain means living with the consequences of your mistakes. You know you can’t be right all the time. Chekov knew that too. He accepted the risk.”

“And being an ensign means dying as a consequence of someone else’s mistake?”

“I doubt it’s in the job description, but… yes. Sometimes my patients die because of my mistakes. It’s not easy to accept…” He pulled a chair up and sat down opposite Kirk. “We’ve been through this before. You’re not just mad at yourself. There’s something else.”

“He could be up here now, he should be… There was no need for him to die.”

“You’re mad at him?” McCoy’s blue eyes had gone hard.

“He disobeyed my orders. I told him to keep quiet, and he went to the Duke and agreed that he’d… Yes, I am angry. I don’t want to be…”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same, in his place? He was there to provide protection for you. I’m sure a board of inquiry would rule he was doing his duty…”

“Bones, I’m not talking about an inquiry. I’m not… I just wish I didn’t feel so angry. I’d like to shake him. And yes, I would have done the same thing in his place. Probably in the face of clearer orders to the contrary. But he… he followed my damned orders when they were wrong and ignored them when they were…”

“If any two crewmen were in danger, and you could only save one, who would you choose?”

“The one with the better chance of surviving…”

“Good medical practice, but if that wasn’t an issue, what criteria do you use?”

When Kirk didn’t answer, McCoy did it for him. “It’s easier for the rest of us, we just save the captain first and work downwards. It’s purely survival. If you think of the Enterprise as a collective, I have a better chance of survival if I save you rather than Chekov. Not because I like you any better but because you’re more important for the ship. He made the right decision. Not for himself but for the rest. What else did you expect, for God’s sake? Jim, can you imagine how he’d be tearing himself apart right now if I was sitting here having this conversation with him? If he had left you there and come back? You do know…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“I do know how the Trask are said to kill their prisoners. Thank you.”

Neither man said anything for a painful few seconds.

“Are we doing any good here? What exactly are we hanging around for?”

“Several development projects were staffed by Federation technicians in the short term. A few that were way outside the local competence needed loaned equipment to run safely while they were down graded. We’re collecting up people and machines and providing some last minute training. Later today, believe it or not, I have to send some technicians down to the Barraggees, the very people who tried to kill us, to sort out some difficulty with a hydroponics project. Apparently it’s a technique the Klingons know nothing about…”

“For God’s sake, Jim, they chose the Klingons over us. Let them suffer the consequences.”

“Vice Admiral Russell considers that a very short term view.” Kirk’s tone told the doctor that this argument wasn’t being aired for the first time.

“So who are you sending down into the frying pan?”

“A couple of very level headed botanists, Lieutenant Sulu…”

“Why?”

“Because he’s good at keeping his temper. And to give him a chance to ask some questions.”

“I thought you’d made up your mind that Chekov was…”

“It won’t hurt to let him do something. And I thought you might like to go. You said you were interested in the Barraggees, from a medical viewpoint…”

“Because they should be extinct. Okay. I’m getting fidgety up here.”

“And because I can rely on you to keep your temper, can’t I?”

“Of course, Captain. Of course.”

***

“I want to talk to you.” Before he even set foot on the twisting stair up to their room, Liiz had darted out of a doorway, her arms full of folded linen.

“Mm?” He was too tired even to object to her buttonholing him.

“About money.”

Newly married as he was, his instincts warned him that this was not a good opening line for a friendly conversation.

“I haven’t got any,” he said defensively.

“You want to eat tomorrow? And Tor needs new clothes. He’s growing like a mushroom. And I’m sick of wearing last year’s rags. And…”

“Liiz?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not arguing with any of that, but I don’t have any idea what to do about it…”

“You didn’t get paid today?”

“I didn’t know I should get paid today…”

“Oh, heavens give me strength!”

She dropped her pile of washing on the bottom step and pushed him out through yet another door. Beyond was a deep, almost pitch black courtyard which linked into another, and yet another, providing a back route to the familiar territory of the place men and their squads. “You get paid at the height of the tide, we pay rent at the bottom of the ebb, okay? Can you remember that?” she nagged at him as she hustled him into a small, windowless room where an ancient and gnarled sergeant was just sliding a stack of coins into a leather bag.

“He forgot to come for his pay.”

The sergeant scowled and halted as the coins teetered on the edge of the table. Its top was scored with a thousand scratches and spills of black ink. As the paymaster pulled a venerable ledger out of a drawer along with a wooden handled pen and an ink stand, a trail of fresh ink added to the patina.

“Name?” He was opening the ledger and smoothing it flat. The pages creaked.

“Pavel, Em’s son.”

“Not down here.”

“Rae. Look for Rae,” Liiz instructed impatiently.

“Rae… Rae… Rae… here we are. Seventy nine ducals, plus seventeen marriage allowance, four firstborn addition and three and a half leatherage, seven fleching, two and nine serstials hay and livery… um, and then there’s deductions. Ten percent supertax, four percent compulsory pension provision, one and a half percent health insurance… Also sconces twenty three ducals.”

The paymaster slid a rickety stack of large and small golden coins towards Chekov’s hands. Somehow Liiz got there before him.

“Thank you!”

Instead of the money, Chekov found his left hand folded round the pen. “Just sign your name here, sir.”

There was a list of dates, and in every space below the one where the paymaster’s finger was now pointing, the uncertain, almost childish scrawl of his predecessor’s signature. Something about it was enormously affecting. Chekov quickly signed his name, his own, full name in the place indicated.

“Right you are.” The remaining coins jangled into the leather pouch and were thrown into the drawer along with the ledger. The drawer squeaked closed, a lock clicked and the paymaster blew out the lamp and was gone, leaving the couple in near darkness.

“You need all of it?”

“Not quite seventy three ducals? You bet I need all of it.”

“But don’t I have to pay for anything? He said something about hay and…” He faltered, not sure what leatherage was, let alone fleching. The pension and health insurance sounded reassuringly familiar at least.

“No. You don’t have to pay for anything.”

Chekov knew this to be untrue. In theory he could have left everything that Starfleet paid him in the bank and lived out of stores, but in reality, one ran up bar bills, wore civilian clothes occasionally, and liked to buy presents for one’s girlfriends…

“What if I want to buy you something?”

He was rather pleased with that suggestion. There didn’t seem to be any way it could be taken amiss.

“You ask me for some money of course. Are you coming upstairs for supper?”

He stayed rebelliously still. “Liiz, did Rae give you all his pay every month — I mean tide?”

“No. But you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll waste the lot on drink, or chances. Or worse.”

“I’m never going to learn if I don’t have some money to practise with.”

She thought about it and slid her hand into her pocket. It came out clenched tight round something. “I’ve got a lot of bills this half tide.” She opened her palm to reveal a three-and-a-half ducal piece, resplendent with a fairly accurate image of the castle that was just discernible in the half light from the corridor.

He wasn’t too impressed with this tiny portion of his pay. “Why don’t I look after all of it? We can work out how much you need to pay the bills for both of us and how much pocket money we…”

“Because, you bastard, I’m not coming to you begging for money.”

The vicious determination with which she said this came as a complete surprise. He backed down. “I’m sorry, all right? I’m not used to this — I mean, well, I know I keep saying that, but it’s true. I’ve always just… and my parents never… It’s just that I don’t know what I have to pay for, and what you need, and I didn’t even expect to get paid… I don’t even know what a ducal is worth.”

“Precisely.” She turned away into the courtyards and the darkness swallowed her up.

***

Sam was happily jangling a handful of coins as he lounged in the passageway outside the paymaster’s office. He dodged a couple of passing soldiers from another squad then looked up and smiled shyly at his commander. “They want to know if you’re, uh, coming for a drink with us?”

Chekov tried to gauge how much money the youngster had and found himself wondering whether he could ask for a loan. Then he considered what his own reaction would have been if Captain Kirk had tried to borrow money from him. He might have been stupid enough to feel flattered but he certainly wouldn’t have felt he could refuse. It really wouldn’t be fair.

“Thank you for asking but I’ve… I’m rather tired. Sam, what are sconces?”

“Sconces? They’re what you… well, when I overslept yesterday you could have charged me sconces.”

Sam managed to be embarrassed and intensely grateful at the same time. Chekov was very relieved that he hadn’t ask for a loan.

“How much would I have charged you, if I had?”

“Well, if you were in a good mood, about nine serstials. If you were in a bad mood, as much as one and nine.”

Chekov was left in no doubt that the illustration was drawn from actual fines imposed on the laggardly Sam by his predecessor. “So what have I done to be charged twenty three ducals?”

“Oh!” Sam’s eyes lit up as he suddenly realised why his commander was interested in scales of penalties. “That was a sconce of one hundred and fifteen ducals over five tides. You got charged that for brawling.”

“Brawling?”

It took a moment for Chekov to readjust his mental image of Rae from the archetype of an innocent bystander to a more fallible humanity. Now his victim had a faithless wife, a child, money problems and apparently a taste for fighting. And that was before you started to consider what Drak might have been talking about. It still didn’t make having killed him any easier.

“Oh, well. At least that explains…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Why I’m a little short of money this tide. How much of it have I paid off?”

Sam stared at the ceiling. “It was last drumming you were tried. This would be the first payment.”

“Thank you, Sam. But — why did Varn say you could be given six lashes for being late?”

“If Rae was in a really bad mood he’d do that too. On top of the sconce.”

“I see.” It was hard to believe that anyone could have found it necessary to take such harsh measures against the cheerful and obliging Sam, who seemed, from Chekov’s minimal observations, to be as bright and hardworking as anyone could reasonably expect. But perhaps it was just shyness with his new commander that made him seem so biddable. Chekov had had to be pulled up once or twice with discipline that made him wince to remember, until he’d learned that there was a place for high spirits and that was seldom while you were on duty. It was easy to see his younger self in Sam and sympathise with Rae.

“What are the Klingons like, sir?”

“You want to work for them?” He hauled himself up short. Of course Sam wanted to get in with the Klingons, as absolutely as Chekov had wanted to join Starfleet and probably from just as young.

“Well, if I can smuggle you in there, without annoying Varn, I’ll let you have a taste of them. But you have to do your own job properly first.”

“Of course, sir.” Sam snapped to attention with an ear to ear grin. “Permission to go, sir?” Chekov nodded and the boy swaggered off down the corridor.

A soft chorus of inaccurate clocks began a prolonged chime of two twelfths off midnight. Chekov had hardly stopped work all day, and the pace had only accelerated towards evening. And he was starving. He could smell the lingering remains of supper in the mess hall but for all he knew he’d be expected to pay for it. He turned reluctantly back towards Liiz.


	6. Chapter 6

As Chekov climbed the narrow stairs his feet got slower and slower It could have just been tiredness but he knew it was as much the prospect of yet another argument. The bundle of linen had gone from the bottom of the steps and the smell of supper, far more appetising than the stale and greasy odours of the mess hall, seemed to flow down the stairwell towards him.

“Why does it have to be so difficult?” He knew the sentiment was false even as he muttered the words under his breath. It wouldn’t be any better if she were a sweet tempered virgin who fell instantly in love with him. He didn’t want it to work. He didn’t want to be here long enough for it to matter one way or the other. He wanted Liiz to conspire with him to make the sham bearable. And why the hell should she?

He pushed the door open just as she was pulling her full white blouse off over her head. The yellow lamp light called out to the golden tone of her skin and glinted flecks of amber into life in her eyes. She spun reflexively, turning her back to him. A half dozen purple-black stripes ran across from her right shoulder down to her left hip.

“Liiz? Who did that to you?”

He pulled himself up short, staggered by the anger he felt at her injuries.

“It’s none of your business.” Liiz said it very coldly, very calculated, as if she’d known he must see the bruises sooner or later and decided in advance what she’d say. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

“He can’t do this to you…”

“I said it’s none of your business. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you aren’t at all interested in me. If you were it wouldn’t have taken you so long to notice them.”

“You don’t have to let him do this, Liiz…”

“Shut up!”

“How could he?”

“Your supper’s keeping hot on the fire.”

She picked up the rest of her clothes and retreated to the bathroom. As she banged the door shut, Tor began to cry.

“Liiz?”

There was no reply. Despite the depth of his outrage, the smell of supper was making his mouth water. He fetched a plate of meat pie from the slow oven and poured a glass of beer from the tall jug on the table, hoping the baby would go back to sleep. Instead, its cries became louder. He pulled the crib closer and rocked it with his toe. Tor was not to be so easily distracted. He wound up the volume a notch. Chekov’s head was already buzzing with exhaustion and the piercing yells cut through to pain that he’d been ignoring all afternoon, laying it bare. The General’s liaison officer put his fork down and picked up the child. He propped the infant up on his shoulder and continued eating, soft sobs and miserable breaths loud in his ear. “Oh, I know just how you feel,” he murmured in Russian. “I truly do.”

By the time he’d finished his meal Tor was asleep once more but when he tried to return the infant to its cradle, the baby woke with a start, flinging his limbs out in a terrified simulation of a sky diver and opening his mouth ready for another yelling session.

“Oh, don’t, little one.” He sat down on the bed, still cradling the child. After a moment he lay down, his arm protectively around the now-sleeping baby. A few seconds later, Chekov too was sound asleep.

***

Again, it seemed that Liiz was going to sleep through the repeated blasts of bird song that greeted the planet dawn. Chekov climbed awkwardly around her feet to get out of bed without disturbing her. He couldn’t remember her coming to bed the previous evening or at what point the baby had been returned to its cot. 

He considered looking for some breakfast but everything had been thoroughly tidied away while he slept and he knew the cupboard doors creaked and squeaked appallingly. He took a long drink from cupped hands at the bathroom tap, dressed in the half-light from the shuttered windows and crept out through the door. His heart thudded at every sound he made, as if he were a burglar.

The scent of pipe smoke hit him as he turned to the stairs. Em sat already on the window sill, his hair in an unkempt mane and a faded black robe draped around him.

“You’re up early, lad.”

“Yes…”

“Not sure what time the General will want you, eh?”

“Yes…”

“Or have you had another row with my daughter?”

Chekov hesitated. “Not exactly a row.”

Em closed his eyes and took an especially deep draught from the mouthpiece of his pipe. Chekov noticed for the first time that it was decorated with carvings of naked women, wildly intertwined one with another.

“She’s stubborn. Won’t listen to any advice, no matter who offers it. Gets an idea in her head and won’t listen to reason. You’ll have to learn, like I did with her mother.”

“Learn what?”

“Give in when it doesn’t matter and when it does…”

“Yes?”

“Give in.” The old man chuckled at his expression. “I don’t mean it, Pavel. You have to plant an idea like a seed with her. Let it grow, until she thinks it was hers all along. She’s not stupid, just mighty stubborn. Just like her mother. Even now, she won’t admit…”

“What won’t she admit?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. But if she’d just say, maybe she was wrong, then I could say, maybe I was wrong, and maybe…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe we could have put it right. But I did what I could, you see. And now, well…”

Chekov’s eyes were beginning to water from the smoke and he couldn’t decipher whether Em sincerely wanted to tell him something or was merely indulging in some senile rambling. He reminded himself that the tenant had seemed coherent enough on military matters a couple of days previously.

The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, looked at it, then replaced it. “I wanted to say that I appreciate the effort you’re putting into this. I know everyone’s saying… well, they’re saying things that are none of their concern. I’m sure you and Liiz will work it out. I mean, you’re a young man. Well, I was young once…” He stared contemplatively at the under side of the next turn of stairs. “I wondered if you could use some breakfast?”

“I thought maybe I could find something downstairs?”

Em produced another of his hefty home-made sandwiches from inside his robe. Chekov accepted it with no intention of actually eating it.

“I don’t sleep so well nowadays. The wife snores… Snores like a Barraggee, I tell her. Not that I’ve ever heard a Barraggee snore, but you can imagine.”

He suddenly took out his pipe again and knocked it out on the side of the window. “Go on, boy. I dare say in time you’ll be sitting here telling young Tor how his mother’s snoring keeps you awake nights. Run along, you’ll be late.”

The tenant pulled his robe tight round his shoulders and vanished up the stair to his own apartment. Chekov watched him go, convinced that the old man had been on the verge of telling him something important. Only he didn’t know whether it was important for getting out of here or important for staying here.

In the end he shrugged and carried on down the stairs, absent-mindedly eating the sandwich. He didn’t recognise the filling but his mind was elsewhere: Kress, who might at any moment realise he was employing a Starfleet ensign as his office boy… liaison officer really was rather a grand title for what he’d been doing so far: Varn, who was sleeping with his wife and apparently treating her less than gently: the Enterprise, and everything Kirk might, or might not, be doing to find him… 

The General’s office was still empty and silent. He put his hand to the security device on the door. He’d almost unthinkingly let the Klingon technicians read his palm when they were setting up the system but it felt strange, dangerous even, to walk in so brazenly. Although it hardly meant anything. Everything was secured, locked up, protected by passwords. About all he had access to inside was his desk and chair. He couldn’t even power up the computer himself. Although… he looked at it. Maybe, if he got inside it…

’Don’t do it just for the sake of it,’ he told himself. ’If it won’t get you out of here, it’s not worth it.’ He pulled a hard copy of the report he’d been working on out of the narrow filing slots under the desk.

“Pavel?”

Chekov jumped. To cover his nervousness he immediately went on the attack. “What are you doing here?”

Varn hesitated, half in the room. He put a hand out carefully, to stop the heavy wooden door closing on him. “I think we need to talk.”

“Yes. I’m glad you think so.” Chekov didn’t stop and allow himself to reflect that Varn was half as heavy again as he was and presumably knew how to use all the weapons he was carrying. He advanced purposefully on his second, giving the man a choice between fighting in the doorway or retreating. Varn retreated.

Outside, the sun was just beginning to break over the eastern wall of the parade ground. Since his second was giving way rather reluctantly, Chekov paused at the top of the two steps down from door of Kress’ office and took advantage of the extra height it gave him. He reached out and lifted Varn’s chin with his right hand so that the man was forced to look up at him.

“You’re to leave Liiz alone. Do you understand me?”

Varn stood very still. “Yes, I understand.”

“If I catch you near her, or hear that you’ve been near her, I’ll…” He realised belatedly that he should have thought about this before he started talking. “I’ll make you regret the day you ever set eyes on her. And if you touch her, if…”

“No.”

“What?”

“You don’t think I beat her, do you?”

It was Chekov’s turn to freeze. His brain must be turning to mush. Of course the bruises were more than four days old. He didn’t need to threaten Varn. He’d already killed the man who’d beaten Liiz.

“I don’t care what you did to her. You’re not doing it any more.”

He swung his fist up and flattened his second’s nose. Varn staggered back and seemed to fall over his own feet. He collapsed untidily on the gravel, his hands to his face.

Chekov turned and went back inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. ’You hit a man rather than admit you were wrong about something that you don’t even care about,’ he told himself. ’What’s happening to you…?’

***

“They are hostile. Unconditionally and implacably hostile to the Federation and all it stands for. This greenhouse project was set up as a sop to them. It represents a vast investment of capital and expertise and frankly I anticipate that it will collapse within a few weeks of us leaving. The Klingons simply don’t have the know-how to maintain it. We were training the local people but relations have been so bad, it’s been well nigh impossible. This is simply a last ditch goodwill mission, to get it straight and try to preserve what we can.”

Sulu and the two botanists listened seriously to Russell’s briefing but McCoy snorted impatiently. .

“How do we know they won’t kill us, or take us hostage to run the damn project for them?”

“They haven’t been treacherous in the past, Doctor McCoy,” Russell pointed out. “I see no reason why they should now. Oh, and for those of you who haven’t seen a Barraggee — be prepared for a shock. And be very careful not to make physical contact with any of their women. They have odd taboos.”

“You won’t want to,” McCoy reassured Sulu and the rest of the party. “They also have odd customs about in-breeding. They make a virtue of incest and it shows.”

“Well, gentlemen, if you’re ready?”

The transporter effect spangled the early morning scene with diamond glitters. Sulu took a deep, deep breath of air that carried the soft, growing smell of dew-wet grass. He didn’t want to like this world but he had a feeling it was out to seduce him.

“Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day,” McCoy said for both of them.

It was, in defiance of everything they expected, a beautiful day. Environment, hosts, meteorology combined to produce a slice of paradise for four men tired of the plastic world of a Starship interior.

“Lieutenant Sulu.” At the end of the day, the leader of the Barraggees interrupted supper, a succulent barbecue, to offer one of their vast copper goblets of wine. The Elder’s daughters, a couple of doe eyed infants — Sulu had even begun to find their strange appearance less distressing — lay sleeping around the ashes of the great fire. “You said earlier you wanted to ask me something.”

“Well…” He glanced uneasily at McCoy and Ira Behr, the Federation hydroponicist in charge of the project. Everything he’d been told in advance militated against asking this question, but their welcome had been so warm today… “Do you have any dealings with the Duke of Eaye?”

“We trade, we cross his lands. Little beyond that.” The elder’s eyes were twinkling as he answered.

“And his young place men are sometimes courageous…” someone else put in.

“And handsome!” one of the women called out. This was answered with cheers and catcalls.

Someone began to strum one of the traditional twelve stringed bagpipes of the Barraggees. It droned and hummed and a fierce, fast melody seemed to burst out of it unaided. Sulu listened to the song but only the chorus, extolling the daring and altruism of Rae, Em’s son, a place man of the Duke of Eaye, was discernible through their accents and obstructed speech. .

As the melody died away, a well-fed silence settled around the dying fire. A spectacular shower of shooting stars filled the western heavens but no one seemed to notice it.

“Why did you ask?” the elder said quietly into Sulu’s ear. The helmsman turned guiltily.

“The Duke took one of our officers prisoner. He says he executed him. I’d like to know, whether he’s alive or dead.”

“Menkashi, you spoke with the Duke’s men yesterday, on the river. Any word of a Federation prisoner? Or the skinning of one?”

“We didn’t speak of their affairs. Only of wet cargo and high water.”

“In truth?”

The one named Menkashi scowled. “We have a brother among the place men of the Duke of Eaye.”

“Yes,” the elder agreed. “We cannot speak lightly of the Duke’s affairs, for fear of bringing misfortune upon our brother. But look, had they skinned your friend, they’d have sent you the hide. Lieutenant, will you honour my house by accepting a bed here tonight?”

It had been intended that the party should return to the Enterprise to sleep, but it seemed insane to ruffle the feelings of the Barraggees by refusing their hospitality at this late stage. At least Sulu and Behr thought so. McCoy was more sceptical.

“What if they cut our throats while we’re asleep?”

“They could have done it more conveniently by daylight, a hundred times over,” Behr pointed out irritably.

“And there are Klingons in the camp…”

That was true enough. Half a dozen Klingons had been hanging around all day, looking more and more irritated. By evening, they’d withdrawn into a tight huddle out of the glow of the firelight.

Sulu shrugged. “We’re not afraid of them, are we, Doctor?”

McCoy rolled his eyes. “No, apparently we don’t have even that much sense. Very well, Mister Sulu. But I’ll hold you responsible for the consequences.”

***

“Federation dog!”

Chekov dropped the freshly printed report he was carrying and its pages fanned out across the floor. He knelt to pick them up, concealing his suddenly pale face and his thumping pulse.

“Kirk would steal bread from toothless old men. Have I told you about the time he cheated Karndel at Niobe Four…”

“No, Commander.”

“Well, later perhaps, when we have time to relish his impudence. Apparently the Enterprise has been spying on the chemical project at Neevas.”

Neevas, Neevas, the name rang no bells at all, despite a whole day spent cataloguing the various Klingon projects that the Federation had adopted and was now having to hand back to native, and hence Klingon, control.

“Neevas, Commander?” Had he overlooked it? It hadn’t appeared on any of Kress’ files, nor had the Duke’s staff mentioned it to him.

“Fisheries development, along the coast from Haben.”

“But you said…”

“Did I? What sharp ears you have, Lieutenant.” Drak pinched one of them to make his point.

Chekov rose to his feet, tapping the loose pages into a neat wad. Drak continued to loom over him, obviously waiting for the next question.

“There was no Federation involvement at Neevas.” While Chekov knew nothing more about Neevas, of that at least he was certain.

“I need you to do something for me, Lieutenant. And I really didn’t want to ask you this soon, until you’d had a chance to really appreciate the advantages of — a closer working relationship with the Empire. But since this has come up…”

“Sir?”

“When did you first see a Klingon, Lieutenant? How old were you?”

Chekov thought rapidly. The Klingons had been present on Kheera for the equivalent of thirty earth years. But Hxharra was remote and isolated, at least in theory. “When I had about one hundred and forty tides, Commander.” He was beginning to learn a little local idiom; not that it mattered, since the natives all spoke Standard so well.

“Ah. And what did you think of them?”

Chekov wondered whether his own early feelings about the occasional Starfleet officers who appeared in uniform around Moscow or Kiev would translate to a Trask childhood. Probably not convincingly.

“How do you imagine you would feel about armed invaders marching down your streets?”

He waited for the explosion that ought to follow this outburst. Nothing happened. After a couple of seconds he started back to his desk with the report. A hand on his arm detained him. “I would fight them to the death, yet here you are, writing reports for the General…”

Chekov’s courage suddenly abandoned him. He froze.

“You hate us, don’t you?” Drak suggested. He didn’t deny it. “But of the Federation and the Empire, we are less — hateful,” the Commander went on, sparing Chekov the necessity of saying it for himself. He’d never been much of a liar anyway. Silence still seemed the better option. It felt like betrayal nonetheless. “I must say the Trask are notably hard-headed about this. You realise that it has to be one or the other. No romantic notions of going your own way.” Drak took the report out of Chekov’s hands. “Perhaps your history helps, constant conquest of one tribe by another. Your feudalism. You follow the lord who will protect you best and bring you the greater benefits. In this case, the Empire.”

Drak sat back down, slammed his booted feet up on the desk. “Have you finished that analysis yet?”

Chekov returned to the terminal he’d been using. He’d been in the office almost without a break since first light, extracting information from the Duke’s files and the Duke’s senior officers, adding it to his own knowledge of Federation activity in the province, and sorting the resulting data into what was near enough to what Kress wanted, without being too helpful. It was now late in the afternoon and his eyes had been closing in the fractions of seconds it took for the computer screen to flash from page to page of his report.

“Yes, Commander.”

“Excellent. The General won’t be back until tomorrow. I think you deserve a break.”

“Sir?”

“You and I are going whoring.”

Drak didn’t wait for any response, fortunately. He simply leaned over and switched the screen off. “Taleek, you’re in charge until we get back.” He dusted off his uniform and pointed out into the still brilliant sunshine.

Chekov preceded the commander through the door, then hesitated. “I ought to leave a message…”

“If you’re going to say you’ve got to tell your wife she needn’t cook for you tonight, so help me, I’ll flatten you. You’re a miserable worm of a man, and it’s time you abandoned this pathetic sham of domesticity. Let her worry. Let her fume. Let her lure some other man into her bed while you’re away. You can kill her for it when you get back. I promise you, you’ll do better than Trask peasants in the long run. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Orion slave girls…”

“I’ve heard of them,” Chekov admitted reluctantly, hoping Drak wouldn’t ask for details.

“When we go back to the supply station at Bhetax, I’ll share one with you.”

They were making their way down the crowded path that led from the parade ground to the main gate. They joined a flood of outsiders carrying bundles, pushing carts and herding animals, all in a buzz of Trask dialects. The local economy defied Chekov’s attempts to understand it but there was an air of serious business about many of the visitors to the castle. Outside the gate, a wide, paved road led down to the ferry over the river, about half a mile distant. Perched on the banks was a village. He’d never been there but he knew it was where his squad went drinking and where Liiz went shopping. Her accounts of the place and theirs differed so enormously that he’d wondered if there were two villages. He suspected that Drak was leading him to the version with the inn whose upper rooms provided the local prostitutes with accommodation.

“I find your ale palatable,” Drak said, pushing aside the bead curtain that kept flies out of the tavern. “Do you want some?”

Chekov suddenly remembered that he had no money. He was far more in need of food than alcohol but he didn’t feel like arguing with Drak.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. His eyes were growing used to the gloom inside the crowded bar. Most of the patrons were crowded around the bar, male and female alike, all talking at the tops of their voices. The tables were taken up by idle prostitutes and a few customers tucking into dinner. Chekov found himself wondering what Liiz’ reaction would be to his non-appearance for the evening meal. To be expected home for dinner seemed so — alien, somehow. Yet it felt so automatic that it seemed to require more positive effort to stay here than to go.

The crowd parted cheerfully for the Klingon. He returned a moment later and waved Chekov to a seat at one of the empty tables. To their left, three laughing girls were making eyes at him and Drak.

Drak surveyed the interior of the inn as if he owned it. “Kress is impressed with you,” he announced, not bothering to keep his voice down.

“Is he, sir?” He certainly hadn’t seemed so and Chekov considered it a dubious compliment anyway.

A pretty girl with a food stained apron delivered two mugs of beer and, to Chekov’s relief, some bread and cheese to their table. Drak whispered something to her and pressed money into her hand. She nodded.

Drak wiped his mouth. “Where did you learn to use computers? Most of Eaye’s people would be happier painting cave walls.”

“I taught myself, mostly. I just — get along with them.”

“And your father is one of Eaye’s tenants?”

“No, sir. I married his daughter.”

Drak laughed out loud. “You’ve more skill for self-improvement than I reckoned. Go on, eat up, I can see you’re half starved.”

Chekov fell to. He hadn’t eaten much lunch — Liiz had been in an unusually prickly mood and the in-built expectation that every meal would end in cross words was beginning to ruin the ensign’s appetite. The cool beer was welcome too, after the long hot day and the dusty walk down to the village. It was light and pale, quite unlike the heavy, spicy ale Liiz served him.

Drak drained his mug. “Now, where’s that blasted girl gone? I told her…”

The serving girl returned, her apron gone to reveal a pleasing, hour-glass figure. With her was another of the inn’s working population, a taller, older woman, with dark skin and eyes. She flashed white teeth in a mock snarl at Drak and sat down beside him.

“Madam,” he said, all courtesy, “can I get you some ale?”

“Commander, if you need to build up your courage before we get to know each other better…”

He laughed at her and stood up, hauling her back to her feet at the same time. “Enjoy, Lieutenant. I’ve paid her already. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.”

The Klingon and his companion disappeared up the stairs in the corner of the bar, leaving Chekov alone with the other girl. “Won’t you sit down?” he suggested after a moment.

She did. “You’re Pavel, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” It was insane, he reflected, that the entire local community could be aware that he was a Federation officer, without the Klingons catching on to this fact. Unless Drak did know — but that seemed increasingly unlikely.

“So, Drak thought this would be a treat for you? You know, Liiz and I were at school together.”

“I didn’t want to come here,” he said hastily. “The Commander suggested it and…”

“You don’t argue with the boss.” The girl got to her feet and putting two fingers in her mouth whistled with astonishing shrillness. A moment later a tray was delivered to the table with two tall glasses containing a little of something clear as water. It looked promising but the oily, raspberry scent that rose off it stopped him dead. “What is this?”

“Practically neat alcohol. Hold on a moment.” She drowned both with water from the jug on the table. “Come on. We’ll take it upstairs.”

The upper floor of the inn was divided into a crazy jigsaw of rooms. She walked past open and closed doors alike and eventually turned into a minute cubicle containing nothing but a bed and a small window. .

“Shut the door then.”

Chekov watched her as if in a dream. She stepped out of her clothes, revealing skin the colour of corncobs.

“Drink up.”

He sat on the bed with his glass and she knelt down to unbutton his boots. Every vertebrae in her back seemed to catch the evening sunlight from the window. He felt a sudden deep regret that he couldn’t draw. Her naked form was so delightful, it cried out to be recorded.

Once his boots were out of the way, she began to unfasten the laces round his pants. .

“What’s your name?”

“Tess.”

“Tess, would you stop, please?”

“You’re paying. Well, he’s paying, but…” The look on his face stopped her. “You’re not comfortable with this, are you? Don’t you have whores where you come from? I know the Klingons don’t. They think it’s a wonderful idea. It takes all the family politics out of sex. I think they must be quite repressed at home. They all tell me how great it would be if I went to Klinzhai and set up in business…”

“Are you serious?”

“If someone would arrange transport. Just think, scarcity value, novelty, exotic aliens… Klingons are my best customers. It makes sense.”

“But even if it worked, you’d be on an alien planet, among people you didn’t know, didn’t understand, who might not be as friendly as you think.”

“We’ve had Klingons here since before I was born. I probably understand them better than I understand you. You may look like us, but… if the idea of being on a strange planet is that awful, why are you here? Why not stay at home?”

“I don’t object to being here. I object to being kept here against my will.”

“Well, I dare say Rae would have objected to being dead, if he’d had the chance.”

“I know. I know that.”

“Why don’t you go home to Liiz? I won’t tell on you.”

“We’ll only argue. I might as well stay here and argue with you.”

“She’s not that bad, given what she’s been through.”

He sighed at her sympathetic but uncomprehending smile. “Tell me about Liiz.”

Tess sat down next to him on the bed and absentmindedly drew a blanket over her shoulders. “She’s very clever. Her father wanted her to go to Koechin, to the University, but… She’s lazy. I think she realised that once she got there she wouldn’t be the cleverest thing around any more. She prefers to stay here and have everyone think she’s some sort of witch.”

He couldn’t help smiling until he remembered that he was married to the woman.

“So what does she do? Apart from the baby?”

“She’s an editor on the Preservation Project — you know about that?”

He nodded. The Trask were reputed to have had nearly twenty nine thousand linguistically distinct cultural groups when they first encountered extra-planetary life. A few decades ago the Prime Directive hadn’t been enforced so rigorously and the Federation hadn’t policed the freelance explorers and exploiters who worked around the fringes of UFP territory. When a rag bag of mainly Standard-speaking pioneers had appeared on Kheera, the Trask had heaved a collective sigh of relief and seized on a mutually comprehensible language whose adoption didn’t mean they were acknowledging another tribe as culturally superior. Even the Klingons, arriving in force a little later and ousting the independents, and so appealingly warlike in the eyes of the warrior Trask, hadn’t been able to sour the linguistic and cultural love affair with things Terran. Belatedly, people had begun to notice that their children no longer spoke their parents’ native tongue and that Trask literature — a universal heritage due to their pictographic written language — was being sidelined. The Preservation Project was the underfunded response.

So, Liiz had a life beyond husband and baby. It had, he supposed, been stupid of him to assume otherwise.

“And Rae..?”

“I don’t think Rae could even read. He liked to talk about his wife the Editor. Until he got drunk. Then it was his wife the bitch.” She leaned over and kissed him, her fingers busy with the buttons on his shirt. He brushed her away distractedly.

“If she never went to the University, how come…”

“She really is clever. And not many people from round here get seriously educated. They would have needed someone who knew the local dialects, who had access to the old people who still remember the stories.”

“Tess…”

“Why don’t you just let me get on with it?”

“Has it occurred to you, that being so willing to sell yourselves to the Klingons might not be a good idea? You want their weapons, you sleep with them, you admire all the violence and bloodshed they stand for. They think the whole planet is for sale.”

“What’s wrong with trade, Pavel? Come on, Drak’s paid. He’s a good customer…”

“You’ve slept with him?” He pushed her away a little more firmly.

“Only once. He prefers older women. But he’s okay. He listens to me. He really understands family loyalty, things that are important.”

’I bet he listens,’ Chekov thought to himself. ’I wonder how much you’ve told him that he’s using against the Duke?’

“Come on, Pavel. Let me deliver.”

He looked up into her golden face and her velvet-grey eyes. Why didn’t he? She was young, attractive, willing — if financially motivated. Only four days ago he’d been bemoaning the lack of sexual opportunities on the Enterprise… The Enterprise. It would be — he guessed — about midday there now, four days after his capture. The ship of course used standard Terran days, while days here were a little shorter. Uhura and Sulu would be taking a break for lunch. Would they be missing him or would they adjust to his absence as quickly as they did to all the other comings and goings, and occasional tragedies, of ship-board life?.

Tess snuggled up to him and kissed the side of his neck. He didn’t push her away this time. Liiz could hardly object, although she’d still made it clear enough that she wasn’t rejecting him. If Tess had seemed genuinely aroused, rather than merely professionally interested… He did feel a deep, aching loneliness, that surely her body would mend, for at least a while. And it wouldn’t mean he was behaving as if he meant to stay… He pulled away and began to unfasten his shirt. She smiled, happy that her customer was content at last. Her expression reminded him of someone. He stopped. “Do you know Sam? He’s a bit younger than you… And nearly as pretty.”

The kindness vanished from her eyes. “He’s my brother. Look, do you want to do this, or not? If not, let me go and get on with something else.”

“No, I don’t want to.” It frightened him that he’d even been prepared to think about it.

She pulled her clothes on in silence then threw a handful of small coins on to the bed. “Here, give the boss his money back. And Pavel…”

He looked up. Her voice was hard and angry. “Don’t you dare hurt Sam. Don’t you even think about it.”


	7. Chapter 7

“I can’t eat.” Lieutenant Uhura pushed the bowl of salad to one side of her tray and pulled a cup of coffee towards her. “I just wish I knew…”

Christine Chapel looked at the piece of chocolate cake she’d fetched in an attempt to rouse her own appetite.

“There’s a lot of co-ordinating to be done, with the withdrawal programme, isn’t there?”

“Oh, yes. I’m fine while I’m on duty. It’s just when it all stops, I start thinking…”

“Then you need to eat.” She plonked the cake down in front of her friend.

“And you don’t?”

Chapel shrugged. “No one’s ill and no one’s messing up sick bay for me. I’m going to get out my needlepoint if it goes on like this…”

“I wish I knew,” Uhura said again, toying with her fork.

“Leonard thinks there’s still a chance he’s alive.”

“How do you know that?”

“He hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t nagged the Captain to inform Chekov’s parents. No one’s even filed an MIA report.”

“But why would the Duke lie about it?” Uhura slipped so smoothly into the role of devil’s advocate, she almost didn’t notice she was doing it.

“I don’t know. It could be some sort of power game…”

“In which case, he might only be keeping him alive as long as it suits him.” She stabbed the fork into the cake and stood up. “I have to get a briefing room ready for a meeting this afternoon. I’ll…”

“Go and bury yourself in your work. I know. I’m thinking of vaccinating everyone against Spican swine fever.”

Uhura wasn’t the only one who’d decided to get back to work early. Kirk was already seated at the table, a half finished plate of sandwiches at one elbow and the terms of the agreed withdrawal spelt out on the screen in front of him.

“I’m sorry…”

“Oh, come in, Lieutenant. I’m only dotting i’s and crossing t’s. And avoiding Admiral Russell.”

Uhura wasn’t sure what to say, since joining in with your Captain to criticise an Admiral was a somewhat delicate pastime.

“Are we going to do anything else, about Chekov? Or has Admiral Russell vetoed it?”

“Lieutenant, if Chekov is alive, which is very uncertain, I may have hastened his death by doing even as little as I did yesterday. I should never have said as much as I did. The Klingons are there on the ground. If Kress thought the Duke had a Federation officer held prisoner, can you imagine what he’d do to him?”

“There are Federation personnel all over the planet, if Kress wanted hostages, or…”

“But they’re civilians, practically of no account to someone like Kress. Chekov is from this ship. In circumstances like these, that can be a disadvantage.”

“Yes…”

“I don’t know whether I believed Eaye, but I damn well hope Kress did.”

The intercom beeped but Kirk ignored it. “I know Sulu wants to launch a rescue mission but the possible consequences are horrendous. And knowing that Chekov did it so that I could get away safely doesn’t help at all.”

“Maybe that’s a good sign…”

“What?”

“Well, that the Duke made a deal with Chekov and kept it. He didn’t have to let you go. The Klingons would have been even more delighted to get hold of you. Maybe…”

“Maybe he’s a man of his word, you mean? In that case, do we believe him when he says Chekov is dead?”

***

Liiz looked up from a table covered with books and paper.

“I didn’t think you’d be in,” she complained, going back to her work.

“Why not?”

“Someone said they saw you and Drak going out.”

“We only went down to the village for a drink. I met a friend of yours. Tess.”

She put her pen down and concentrated on him. “Why would you have met Tess? I thought you said you went out for a drink?”

He couldn’t quite tell if she was really as annoyed as she sounded or if this was more sarcasm. He opted for honesty. “Commander Drak wanted to…”

“And you didn’t want to?”

“No. I decided to come back.”

“I see. Where you don’t have to pay. Sorry, I’m busy. This has to be finished tomorrow and the screen on my reader is wrecked.”

He realised that her library reader was lying in pieces. “I might be able to…”

“Don’t touch it!”

His fingers froze an inch away from the control unit. ’I could probably turn this into a usable communicator,’ he thought. Then he looked at it and realised that it was all specialised integrated circuits. The only way you could turn it into anything would be to melt it down and start again. He’d have more success with the contents of the cutlery drawer.

“I’m quite good at mending things.”

“Really?” she responded sceptically. “Okay then. What have I got to lose?”

“You haven’t got any tools, have you?”

“Trask, no. Rae never mended anything. Broke things, yes.”

“Or a sewing needle? And a small knife? I just need something…”

“I’ll see. Oh…” Having got up from her seat, she was distracted by a pile of cards on the corner of the table. “These came.”

She handed him the top one. He looked at the pictograms and shrugged apologetically. “I can’t read it.”

She snatched it back. “How can you be so confounded ignorant? It’s an invitation. To the naming of our son. It’s on the first of the next tide, at the morning invocation. You’d better inform the General that you’ll need the morning off.”

“But…” He stopped. “Is that a good idea?”

“Look…” She sat back down again. “This is important to me, Pavel. It should be important to you too.”

“If he was my son, and if I shared your beliefs, and if I had given up hoping that I won’t be here by the first of the next tide, then it would be important to me.”

“I see.” She started picking up the invitations and shredding them, one at a time, into the smallest pieces she could. He watched her destroy four of them before he tried to take the next out of her hands.

She pushed him away. “You’ve ruined everything. What you haven’t ruined, you’re going to ruin. I hate you, Rae…”

“I’m not Rae.”

“Yes, you are. Yes, you are.” She slumped back into her seat, swept the remaining cards off the table with her arm and buried her face in her hands.

Before Chekov could decide what to do, someone tapped at the door.

“Liiz, shall I tell them to go away?” His only answer was a renewed storm of sobs from behind the barrier of her fingers.

The knock was repeated, louder. He went and opened the door a few inches and looked out. A man a little older than himself, wearing what Chekov thought were clerical robes, backed away apologetically. “I wondered if it would be convenient…”

“My wife isn’t very well,” he improvised.

A mask of sympathetic concern rolled over the clergyman’s face. “I’m so sorry. I’ll come back another time. Unless there’s anything I can do?”

“Thank you, but…”

“Father, come in!” Chekov felt himself pushed to one side out of the way. “You’ve got to talk to him, Father. He doesn’t want Tor to be named…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You might as well have done.”

The priest came into the light and bestowed a patient smile on man and wife.

“I have got a terrible headache,” Liiz said defensively, as if it had been her who’d lied about her health.

“Then why don’t you sit down, both of you?”

They took chairs on opposite sides of the table. The priest shook his head mournfully. “I see.”

The warring parties exchanged a look of mutual discomfort.

“Well now, Rae…”

“I’m not Rae.”

“There is scriptural authority for the strict interpretation that you are. But if you wish to be called something else…”

“Ensign Chekov.”

“Ensign Chekov, then of course, I will do so. Oh, and I always forget to introduce myself. Father Topalian.” He lifted the charm around his neck and kissed it. Liiz pulled clumsily for her own and copied the gesture. They both looked expectantly at Chekov.

He hadn’t bothered to retrieve the idol from the beach by the river. “I’m sorry. When I became a Barraggee I gave up wearing mine.”

“You are an apostate?”

“No, I’m a Barraggee.”

“Oh, my. I didn’t know he was a Barraggee.” Topalian glanced warily at Liiz.

“I thought everyone knew. He’s only been a Barraggee since the day before yesterday. I expect by tomorrow he’ll be something else. And it wasn’t a proper conversion. It was a choice between being a Barraggee and being dead.” Chekov couldn’t tell if Liiz was baiting him or teasing Topalian.

“Martyrdom is sadly out of fashion,” the priest remarked sorrowfully.

There was a moment’s awkward silence.

“And you don’t want your son named according to the rites of the True Faith,” Topalian ventured.

“I think Tor should be brought up according to his mother’s beliefs. I’m purely a nominal Barraggee.” Chekov forced the corners of his mouth into order. He remembered his father saying almost exactly the same thing, tongue in cheek, to his terrifyingly devout Orthodox great grandmother following some difference of opinion over the young Pavel’s upbringing. He also remembered the old lady’s hurt silence. “I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with your beliefs. Whatever Liiz wants is perfectly acceptable to me.”

Liiz kicked the mutilated invitations under the table. “I… I was upset that Pavel didn’t… uh, didn’t seem to understand what it meant to me, Father.

Topalian didn’t appear to have noticed the shredded cards. “Oh, well, that’s not a problem then. Perhaps you’d like to have someone stand in for you as sponsor, Ensign Chekov?”

“Uh, if you think that’s would be for the best, and if Liiz is happy…”

“I don’t mind. I’m sure my father would do it. If Pavel being a Barraggee is a problem…”

“It is not a problem with the rite of naming, as such, but I am concerned at other aspects of Ensign Chekov’s conversion.”

“Oh?” Liiz sounded curious. “Surely, if he’s a Barraggee, you can simply wash your hands of him?”

“But he is…” Here Father Topalian folded his hands together and squeezed them, as if forcibly extracting some conclusion. “…in the eyes of the Congregation of the Faithful, merely a custodian of the immortal essence of your late husband. Arguably, he has no right to convert. In doing so, he puts Rae’s ultimate destiny in jeopardy.”

Chekov glanced nervously at Liiz. It hadn’t occurred to him that his current dilemma would have implications in the after life. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“You killed Rae, Em’s son. By taking his place, you are restoring what you took from Em and the rest of his family by that action. But you also deprived Rae of a full life span in which to prepare himself for his eventual demise. Hence, you have a responsibility to him there. I doubt if Rae had intended at any point to become a member of a somewhat unorthodox minority cultural and theological grouping.”

“He didn’t like the Barraggees,” Liiz put in helpfully.

“And of course in the popular understanding of the Old Law of Substitution, you will, over the course of time, actually become Rae, Em’s son…”

“What?”

“It’s only a folk belief, but it might help you to understand people’s behaviour if you are aware of it.”

“Yes?”

“Well, the… uh, the… shall we say, the…”

“Murderer?” Chekov suggested.

“No, no, no. The Law of Substitution would not be invoked where the crime was premeditated, or for personal gain. The… perpetrator was assumed, over a period of time, to actually take on the persona of his victim. I don’t say that you were wrong to become a Barraggee, in the circumstances. But I do feel that in view of your responsibilities, you should perhaps think more carefully before taking such a drastic step in the future.”

“I’ll remember that.”

He caught Liiz’ eye. She scowled furiously at him and his urge to giggle at the priest’s high seriousness evaporated.

“Good. I’m so glad we’ve sorted that out. And the rite of naming can go ahead as planned?”

“I’ll ask the General if I can take some leave.”

Topalian fixed Chekov with tiger-yellow eyes. “Oh, you won’t be able to attend.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a Barraggee. I’m afraid the rites and sacraments of the True Faith are closed to you.”

“You mean I’m…” He sifted through his memory for the right term. “Excommunicated?”

The priest nodded. “If that bothers you, we can always talk about it.”

“What about Rae?” Liiz interrupted. “He was quite… religious.”

“My dear, I think superstitious might be a better way to describe him. He had a primitive belief that he could get away with almost anything if he made the right noises at the full tide. You’re probably better off with your Barraggee… So long as you don’t have any daughters. That might cause — offence.”

“The way we’re going, that’s not going to be a problem.” She blushed at her own indelicacy and looked down at her hands.

“Why, what do the Barraggees do with their daughters?” Chekov asked. Although he wasn’t religious, the fact that the Congregation of the Faithful had slammed their doors on him made him unexpectedly uncomfortable. His great grandmother would not have been impressed. Perhaps he should take his new status more seriously.

“They sleep with them,” Liiz said dismissively. “But Rae, Father, he’d made the pilgrimage to Can, and he was pa’hoot…”

“Yes. But if we’re honest, he never actually changed the way he behaved, not for a moment.”

Liiz leaned down and picked up the invitations. “At least you can come to the party afterwards.”

Her tone of resignation pricked Chekov into feeling guilty. “Is this an important occasion, for the baby’s family?”

“Usually,” Topalian said diffidently. “Might I ask, are you two having… difficulties?” His eye rested indulgently on the mutilated cards, still visible in the shadows under the table.

“It’s a little strange,” Chekov admitted. “And…” He hesitated, but if you couldn’t talk to a priest about how you felt, who were you to turn to? “I’m worried about my own family, and my friends…”

Topalian sighed softly. “They will have been told that you are dead.”

“I know. That’s why I’m worried. My parents…”

“You were an only child?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” Topalian spread his hands helplessly. “Rae was also an only child, and his mother is a widow. She has the comfort of the True Faith. I hope the same is true of your own mother and father.” 

After the priest had departed, Liiz silently fetched a box of sewing tools. Chekov found a couple of little knives with blunted, nicked blades and opened up the screen of the reader. “Federation technology,” he said, looking at the circuit board inside.

“And it doesn’t work.”

He spotted the loose connection. It was a moment’s work to heat the tip of a knife blade in the fire and solder it crudely into place. “That’s because it’s been badly put together.”

He clipped the case shut and switched it on. The screen lit up with pictograms and Standard characters, mixed. “There you are.”

“Thank you. It would have been assembled in a Klingon run factory.”

Small concessions, he thought.

***

Sulu woke to the cold prick of a Klingon knife at his throat. He sighted along the blade, up the muscular arm and into a pair of eyes, black as the surrounding night.

Someone hauled him to his feet and gagged him with rags that tasted of sweat. The knife point never wavered as he was dragged outside into the night and sent stumbling into the bright glow of a high intensity light cell. Sulu blinked and focused on the other three members of the landing party. Each was attended by a Klingon. Each was threatened by a knife.

A Klingon officer Sulu didn’t remember seeing before stepped out of the shadows, his hand clasped round something that the lieutenant did instantly recognise: an agoniser. He struggled and the arms that restrained him tightened.

“Lieutenant… Sulu, isn’t it?” The officer nodded to someone and Sulu felt the gag slip away from his mouth.

“Yes.”

“Of the Enterprise?”

“What do you want?”

“To know what deal you’ve done with these people, what Kirk has offered them.”

Sulu kept his eyes fixed dead on the Klingon. “There have been no deals that you don’t know about. We’re here to give the locals…”

“Don’t lie!” A leather-gloved hand smacked across his mouth. He slammed back into whoever was holding him. The agoniser was pressed to his throat.

Now he let himself look at the others, if only to assess what they could do to help him. Nothing. There were at least seven Klingons in his field of vision.

“Believe what you like…” Fire engulfed his body. Through its roar he could hear McCoy shouting. Red hot intensified to white. His throat tried to turn inside out on a soundless scream.

Then the fire was out and he sank to the ground, folding in on himself, his extremities sending desperate messages of pain. “Oh, God…”

“There are no deals.” The doctor was still shouting. “Why do you always have to believe we’re trying to deceive you?”

The Klingon’s voice was cold. “Because we learn from experience, Doctor. Repeat it. For twice the duration.”

“I don’t know anything!” Sulu pleaded as his captor rammed the agoniser up against the underside of his jaw. “You’re wasting your time!”

“What is happening here?”

The Barraggee accent was unmistakable. The elder, wearing an embroidered night-shirt that should have made him look ridiculous but somehow only added to his alien dignity, moved into the centre of the scene. He didn’t look around for himself, merely waited for the answer to his question.

“Since you no longer kill this Federation trash, we have to do it for you.”

“They are our guests.”

“They are your enemies. You know that is true. Shall I slit their throats and save you the trouble?”

“Release them.”

“What have they done to you, Elder? You wanted their blood a half tide ago. I sat with you round your fire and we talked of a blood letting to slake the desert…”

“Not any more. Release them.”

Sulu began to breathe again. The Barraggee had all the presence of James Kirk, despite his felt slippers and tangled hair. The very fact that he’d come out alone and unarmed to tackle a nest of Klingons…

“Kill them.” The Klingons’ leader dropped his hand like a guillotine.

Barraggees boiled out of the darkness and everything bubbled over into chaos. Someone kicked the light out and Sulu’s captor collapsed on top of him, pinning him to the ground. He screamed aloud this time, as the agoniser kicked into life. A desperate reflex jerked him away from the instrument of torture and he lay there, shaking and retching, telling himself in vain to get up and take control.

“Lieutenant? Sulu? Are you okay?” The light came back on. McCoy, blood streaming from a four inch gash in his right cheek, was bending over him.

“I’m… I will be, I think. How about you?”

McCoy put fingers up to his face and probed from the inside with his tongue. “Hm. It’s gonna be kind of sore later.”

The Klingons were outnumbered, subdued, sulking furiously. They were led away by the natives.

“Looks like we’re favourite aliens for the moment,” McCoy speculated. “I wonder how long a moment, though, and why the change…”

Sulu took a deep, deep breath The rush of oxygen prickled his nerves, prompting shallow ripples of pain. He forced himself to ignore it. “They’ve been really welcoming all day,” he pointed out. “Obviously the Klingons were just as baffled as us. I guess they didn’t like it though…”

The elder reappeared. “My apologies. I am deeply shamed that you should have been treated like this while you were our guests. Please, resume your beds. And this time I will post guards.”

Sulu let McCoy help him up then shook the doctor off. “I can manage, thanks.”

McCoy hesitated before realising that Sulu was in charge here. To be helped to bed would do nothing for the Barraggees’ image of him, or his own. He nodded and headed back for the house.

The elder put a hand on Sulu’s arm to stop him following. “When you return to your ship, tell your captain that we have a brother in Eaye’s castle. Tell him that we owe a debt to Rae, Em’s son. You understand?”

“I…”

“Tell him.”

McCoy had waited for Sulu at the door of his room. A stolid Barraggee, beardless with youth, but still a formidable physical presence, stood to one side of the doorway. The doctor drew Sulu inside. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know. Something about someone in Eaye’s castle…”

“You think he meant Chekov?”

“I think it was a warning not to take any action against the Duke. Because they regard the Duke, or someone around the Duke as a brother. Hell, I don’t know.” Sulu shrugged miserably.

“Why would he say that if he didn’t think we had a reason to attack the Duke?”

“He said they owed a debt to Rae, Em’s son. Wasn’t that the guy they were singing about earlier?”

“Oh, God, no. That’s the name of the man Chekov killed.”


	8. Chapter 8

Liiz seemed to be making a great deal of fuss over finding Chekov’s uniform for him the following morning. Showered and shivering in his undergarments, he played disinterestedly with his breakfast while she mended something that had apparently had buttons missing for days without him noticing. 

“Why is it so important? It already has more buttons than I have ever seen before on one garment.”

“You want to make the right impression.”

“On whom?”

“The Duke.”

“He already knows I am an untrustworthy Federation cossack who…”

“What’s a cossack?”

“A member of the militia. They fought on horseback, with swords. They defended Russia — that’s a region of Earth…”

“They sound more Trask than Federation.”

Chekov thought about it. “Perhaps they were. But it is also a term of abuse. They were patriots but their methods, and their behaviour in peace time, made them unpopular.”

“There, you’ve got the right number of buttons now.”

He pulled the shirt on and fastened the buttons that pulled it from a shapeless garment into something that fit close and comfortable. There still seemed to be some left over buttons with no home. He looked at Liiz for help. 

“You don’t do them all up. Just the ones that fit.”

He thought about that. “Was Rae about the same size as me?”

“No. The same height, maybe, but heavier, more muscular. You’ve just got everything laced in tighter. And he used to pull all his buttons off anyway.”

Criss-crossing the lacings around his legs prior to putting his boots on, Chekov couldn’t look up to see her face. Her tone was casual but he couldn’t tell if it was genuine or a defence against stronger feelings. “How long have you been… you and Varn…”

“Only since Rae died.”

“Oh.”

“Why? Does it matter?”

“In another six days I shall know beyond any doubt that I am trapped here. I have to — to come to terms with that. If we are stuck with each other…”

“You are, and we are. The Duke won’t let you go.”

“I don’t understand him.”

“No. He’s very clever. And he doesn’t explain himself to the likes of you.”

“Well, then, I don’t see how we can go on like this.”

“Like what?”

“With you and Varn.”

“I thought you’d made it very clear that there was no more me and Varn. Or did he misunderstand you? I think I’m the one who should be saying it can’t go on like this. Don’t you? You’re the one who’s behaving like a fish in a sandpit.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A fish has no use for a sandpit. You don’t appear to know what you’re supposed to do with me. I’d have thought Tess would have explained, if you’d asked her. I’ve offered to show you myself. What you caught me and Varn doing might have given you a clue. Do you need any more hints than that?”

“I don’t see any point pretending I feel something for you that I don’t. And it is obvious to me that you regard the whole thing as… as some sort of social convenience.”

“I admit I was unfaithful… I’m not saying I’m an angel.”

“I am not criticising you. I simply don’t wish to be married to you.”

“But you are. You can’t change that now…”

He shrugged. “We shall see.”

“Then why did you hit Varn? Why did you frighten him off?”

Chekov blinked at her. “I lost my temper. I think you might be grateful that I kept it as long as I did. I didn’t frighten him…”

“Then why won’t he talk to me anymore?”

“I didn’t frighten him. Why should he be frightened of me? He’s bigger than me.”

“Oh, don’t be pathetic.” She glared at him. “I know you don’t want to be here, but I don’t know what I’ve done to you. If I’d said I wouldn’t marry you, your precious captain would be dead. Would you rather I had?”

“That isn’t the point.” He slipped his button hook back into the side of his boot and walked out.

For once, Liiz ran after him and yelled down the stairs. “You’re so damned difficult, Pavel, Em’s son. Can’t you see when someone is trying to be nice to you?”

“I don’t want you to be nice to me.”

“Fish!”

He carried on down the stairs and barely managed to halt on the bottom step without colliding with Varn. His second flicked his gaze down to the floor, but not before Chekov had seen the bruises that stretched beneath his eyes across the width of his face.

“I’ve informed General Kress that the Duke requires you for an hour this morning,” Varn informed his commander’s boots.

“What? What did the General say?”

“That you could work late to make up for it. Commander Drak looked a little sour. I sometimes think that he’s in charge really.”

Chekov didn’t bother to admit that the thought had also occurred to him. “Couldn’t I have been told about this? Why am I always the last to find out?”

“Well, it’s just one of those things that everyone knows. They don’t remember to tell you. Rae would have known.”

“Did Rae know about you and Liiz?”

Varn blushed scarlet. “No. He’d have killed us.”

Chekov experienced no satisfaction at catching Liiz in an outright lie. He contented himself with a savage scowl.

“Don’t worry,” Varn said shortly. “You’re about to get your revenge. Come on.”

“Where?”

“The drumming.”

The parade ground had been swept to perfection. A large table had been brought outside and the Duke and a couple of his tenants were seated at it. The fifty squads of foot soldiers were drawing up in neat files before their lord and two men were beating a rhythm on large skin-and-wood drums that set the hairs on the back of Chekov’s neck prickling. Imitating the other squad commanders, Chekov stood at the end of his line of soldiers. Varn moved neatly into place beside him. “You’ll be one of the last,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“What?”

But the drums had changed their pattern to a slow, pulse-like beat and everyone had fallen silent. Varn looked straight ahead.

One by one, men were summoned out of the ranks and confronted, as far as Chekov could tell, with some misdemeanour. The language was so archaic, mixing the local dialect with the near universal Standard, he couldn’t have guessed what they were being accused of. The penalties were easier to understand. Sconces and lashes: more often the latter. This society was barbaric. He looked at the whipping posts out of the corner of his eye and caught some of the sentenced doing the same. The most anyone was given was ten lashes. None of his own men were called out, which was just as well as the squad commander frequently appeared to be required to give evidence or act as a half-hearted defence.

“Civil cases,” the elderly clerk of the court announced after about twenty minutes and a grand total of one hundred and fifteen lashes. Justice, Chekov reflected, was certainly swift. He wondered when the punishments would be administered and sincerely hoped he’d be allowed to leave first.

After a few minutes spent in agreeing compensation for spoilt crops and lost livestock, a pale, pretty girl was led forward by an older woman. The Duke gestured for someone to bring her a chair. She sat down awkwardly.

“What is this application?” Eaye asked, tempering his military abruptness.

“My daughter seeks damages for rape, my Lord Duke.”

Chekov looked away from the girl. It didn’t seem fair to watch her. He concentrated on Xeris, who was complacently replaiting a leather whip.

“What were the time and place and who committed this assault?”

“The thirteenth of the last tide, around midnight in the village. She was assaulted by Rae, Em’s son.” The aggrieved mother, Chekov supposed, cast her eye over the ranks of men and officers, looking for Rae. Well, justice was swift, Chekov considered, but in this case not swift enough. Rae was turning out to be less and less of a martyr. The mother turned back to the Duke, a look of frustration on her face.

“Rae, Em’s son, come forward to give evidence.”

Varn nudged him and Chekov jumped. “Me?”

“Go on. You want sconces for lack of respect to the drumming?”

This was ridiculous, Chekov thought, as he pushed his way down the narrow gap between his squad and the next. The girl was looking at him in frank disbelief. He stood dutifully to attention as every other witness had.

“This isn’t…” the plaintiff began. Eaye held up his hand.

“Did you know Rae, Em’s son, before the thirteenth of the last tide?”

“Yes, my lord. I’ve known him for years.”

“Are there witnesses to this assault?”

“No, my lord, but Rae offered to walk me home from the tavern and several people saw us leave together.” The witness was quite calm, her voice quiet and determined. She looked the Duke in the eye as she answered.

“Are any of these witnesses here?”

Several people stepped to the front of the crowd of onlookers.

“Can anyone provide an alibi for the accused?”

No one moved.

“And is there anyone who doubts the veracity of this woman?” The Duke waved a hand towards the victim. Again, the crowd was almost unnaturally still.

“You saw a doctor after the assault?”

“Yes, my lord, a surgeon of the militia.”

A small man, wearing a single eyeglass, pushed to the front of the spectators.

“There was certainly evidence of an assault as claimed by the young lady. I would say that force was used.”

“But this isn’t…” the girl began.

“And you are Rae, Em’s son?” Eaye demanded of Chekov.

It was like the trick questions his uncle used to wind him up with when he was just old enough to try to reason abstractly. But he’d learned, eventually, that the only safe option was to refuse to play, even if it spoiled everyone else’s fun.

He said nothing.

“This is ridiculous. He isn’t Rae. I withdraw the claim.” The girl, now shown, in Chekov’s opinion at least, to be a young woman of principle, got to her feet.

“Please, sit down,” the Duke said patiently. “We are addressing the civil case. If one of my officers, regardless of the actual identity of that officer, behaves in a dishonourable fashion, you are entitled to damages and, more importantly, you and all civilians are entitled to be reassured that such behaviour will not be tolerated. Armies that are out of control are like a plague. It hardly matters whether they are one’s own or one’s enemy. Allow us to deal with this in the proper fashion, please. And as for you…” He swivelled to face Chekov. “…you are a witness in the drumming and you will reply with civility to any questions put to you. Are you Rae, Em’s son?”

Chekov relaxed a fraction. He was merely a witness after all, if an unhelpful one. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you have any defence to the claim?”

“I have no recollection of the events of the thirteenth of the last tide, sir.” He allowed a degree of sarcasm to show in his answer, which Eaye ignored.

“I award damages of three and a half hundred ducals, to be paid immediately. The drumming is now closed.”

The collection of watching civilians surged forward over the invisible line that had confined them and began to drift off, taking the bulk of the Duke’s men with them. Rae’s victim came over to Chekov, her mother trailing her anxiously.

“I didn’t know that Rae was dead. I’m sorry.”

Chekov merely shrugged, embarrassed.

“Why did you kill him?”

“It was an accident.”

She smiled bitterly. “That’s really very ironic. Thank you.” Her mother caught up with her and gestured that they should go, sparing only a curious glance at Chekov. The ensign watched them walk away to join a youngish man who might have a boyfriend or perhaps a brother, judging by the casual way he put his arm round the young woman. Then he glanced up at the sun to see how long the drumming had taken. Still less than an hour. When he turned to walk away to Kress’ office, he felt a hand on his arm.

“The drumming is closed, not over. Cases against serving officers are never heard in public.” It was Varn.

Chekov now realised that all Eaye’s senior personnel were still standing around. At the same moment, it hit him that a legal system which had him paying a dead man’s fines, might hold other disadvantages.

“Who pays the damages?”

“The Duke, of course.”

“And what happens to me?”

Chekov had to admit that Varn had the grace not to look pleased when he said quietly, “It’s a breach of military order. You’ll be awarded at least twenty lashes. It could be a good deal more.”

“Is it going to do any good at all to remind the Duke that Rae and I are two entirely separate people?”

“In law, you are the same person.”

The drum beats recommenced. The forty or so officers who remained formed themselves into a semicircle around the Duke’s table. Eaye took his seat again and nodded to the clerk to begin.

“Rae, Em’s son. Step forward.” Feeling like a cog in a machine Chekov obeyed.

“You have committed a serious breach of good military order and acted in a manner that brings the entire force into disrepute. For the maintenance of discipline, I sentence you to twenty five lashes, to be administered without further delay.”

Chekov just looked at the Duke, refusing to be cowed. ’You knew this was hanging over Rae, you all did,’ he accused silently. ’You all knew that Rae was a bastard who was better off dead, and you let me be tied here by a promise that Rae would never have kept. And now the Enterprise can’t help me, and it’s too late…’

“Remove your jacket and shirt.” He didn’t. He’d had enough of co-operating. A couple of men from a squad other than his were fitting one of the whipping posts into a handy slot in the parade ground. He realised now that he could hear the crack of leather on bare skin from the other side of the ground, where the other ranks were receiving their punishments.

The Duke was watching him still and he squared his shoulders a little more firmly. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Varn methodically unbuttoning his shirt.

When he turned he realised that Varn was the only second who had remained when the drumming was declared closed. If he’d thought about it, he’d have assumed it was because Varn was acting up as commander, but…

“You didn’t think you were going to get the lashes, did you?” Varn pulled his shirt off and threw it onto the ground. His back bore scars that suggested he’d taken this sort of punishment before, quite recently. “Don’t worry. I’m used to paying for Rae’s fun.”

He offered his hands up to the cuffs and his arms were pulled taut above his head.

“No!” Chekov heard himself say.

“Silence!”

“This is unjust. He didn’t…”

The first lash fell across Varn’s broad back. Chekov felt giddy with imagined pain. All he could feel was the other man’s suffering. “My lord…”

Eaye didn’t stop the beating, but he got up out of his seat and walked round slowly to Chekov while the count went up to two, three, four, five…

“Yes, Pavel?”

“This is cruel. It’s not even sensible. How was this supposed to stop someone like Rae…”

“It’s not your concern. If you hadn’t killed Rae, it all would have happened exactly the same. I should change things because you killed one of my officers?”

Chekov didn’t answer.

“In practice, you’ll find it’s usually very effective. Rae was — difficult. And I’m sure this is the last time Varn will have to do this. Which reminds me, I haven’t had a chance to ask you what you’ve learned from Kress yet. Anything of interest?”

Chekov couldn’t believe that Eaye intended to coolly debrief him while another human being was beaten bloody a stone’s throw away.

“You are savages.”

“Stop!”

Chekov had thrown out the jibe almost without thinking. He certainly hadn’t expected it to make any difference.

“What did you say?”

“That this whole situation is barbaric. It’s unjust…”

“I normally try to avoid beating my officers, Pavel, but I can make an exception in your case. You think we are uncivilised?”

“If this is an example of…”

“You’re sure you’re not just offended that the space-going culture we admire is Klingon rather than human?”

“The Federation is withdrawing and allowing you to make a free choice…”

“A choice that you consider ill-informed, perverse, even… shall I say it?… barbaric?”

“I think the Klingon Empire appeals to the least civilised components of your society, but it is your choice.”

Considering he’d just called them a bunch of savages, Eaye’s officers looked remarkably sympathetic.

“You came into a region of our planet where you knew yourselves to be unwelcome. When, as you might have anticipated, the inhabitants took exception, you killed an unarmed man. Not even in self-defence, but to recover equipment. I interpreted the law with the utmost liberality in order to keep both you and your captain alive. The family of the dead man have accepted you. They haven’t mistreated you, or abused you, have they? Indeed, I believe Liiz has had reason to complain of your lack of commitment to your part of the bargain. I have treated you with respect. I have trusted you. Have you been locked up, deprived of rights and duties appropriate to your rank, in any way treated as anything less than an officer of the Duke of Eaye? Have I not kept the law?”

“You have, as far as I can tell, abided by your laws in this case.”

“And what does the Federation require you to do in turn?”

“Abide by the local laws.”

“Your laws would, of course, be vastly superior. Perhaps you would like to tell us how Federation law would have ruled in this case. Would they have allowed you to kill with impunity?”

“No…”

“Then what exactly is your complaint?”

Chekov took a deep breath. “It is not my place to condemn or commend what I have seen of your law. I do find it… personally unacceptable, that I should be punished for Rae’s crimes, although I understand the logic of it. I also find it personally unacceptable that Varn should take my punishment, whether it was deserved or not. And I cannot see any logical basis to that.”

The Duke nodded. “You would prefer to take your punishment yourself?”

Chekov asked himself why he was doing this. He couldn’t come up with an answer. “No, but…”

“Let his second down.”

The chains rattled and Varn fell on his face on the ground.

Eaye nodded towards the post. “Go on then. We’re waiting for you…” But as Chekov raised a hand to remove his jacket, he was reprieved.

“I think this has had a sufficient impact on you,” the Duke said. “The sentence is commuted to the number of lashes already given.”

As the officers wordlessly dispersed, Chekov picked up Varn’s shirt and took it over to where the man lay prostrate on the swept gravel.

He realised that Eaye was still standing there.

“You didn’t answer my question, about Kress.”

Chekov knelt down and carefully touched Varn’s arm. The man flinched. “Can you get up?”

He looked hopelessly at his second’s back and shoulders. There was no way to get a hold on him and help him to his feet. He turned and looked over at the door into the block where the squad rooms were located. To his relief, Farez and Diek were standing there. He stood up and beckoned to them.

“Pavel, I need an answer.”

“They’re Klingons. Of course I suspect them of having undeclared intentions to abuse your trust. Of course you don’t. I haven’t seen any proof that I am correct. When I do, I’ll pass it on to you. If I survive that long.”

“Why shouldn’t you survive?”

“I can’t believe that no one is going to tell Kress who I am. Even Kronor knows I’m a Starfleet officer. Surely…”

“Pavel, we admire the Klingons. That doesn’t mean we capitulate to them. You’re one of us, now. Just as Kronor is. I know he looks like a Klingon, but his mother was Trask. When his father died, his family disowned him as a half-bred bastard. He doesn’t love the Klingons either. Of all the men in this castle, he’s probably the only one who hates them as much as you do.”

Farez and Diek halted just far enough away not to overhear what Chekov and the Duke were saying. Chekov waved them forward and nodded at Varn. 

“Take him to…” He had a vision of an empty bunkhouse, or a comfortless military sanatorium. “Take him to Liiz. She’ll look after him.”

Between the two of them, the men were able to get Varn to his feet without causing him too much discomfort. He was conscious but unsteady and leaned heavily on them.

“Rae was a brutal, undisciplined rapist who beat his wife. Is there anything else I should know?”

The Duke straightened his cloak on his shoulders. “He was ambitious, or at least he was greedy for what success would give him. If I were to be honest with you, I would have to admit that I’m vastly happier with him out of the way. Does the Federation excuse the wilful killing of unpopular persons?”

“No. I… I realise it doesn’t make me any less guilty, whatever he did.”

“You felt you should take the lashes, even though you were no more guilty than Varn. You wanted me to let your captain go, while you still expected me to have you killed. I don’t understand you. Kirk was responsible for Rae’s death.”

“Neither of us wanted anyone to be killed. We were tricked into that ambush. And it was my duty to put his safety before my own.”

“Then you put his safety before justice?”

“I didn’t feel that either of us was guilty. I was simply doing my duty, which was to keep him alive.”

“I see. It hasn’t occurred to you, that if you had not killed Rae, an unarmed man, he would be here now to defend himself?”

“Well, yes…”

“Since he is dead, I was obliged to accept that woman’s claim. I couldn’t in justice do anything else. But I doubt if she feels justice has been done, even our inferior justice. Em is left with his family name dishonoured, Liiz’ husband is branded a rapist, and a little, innocent child of two tides, already orphaned, will grow up knowing that his father was a judged a despoiler of women. I am in addition out of pocket to the tune of three and a half hundred ducals. All of which may be proper. I dare say you would find it comfortable to believe that Rae was guilty. And you’ve made sure he can’t dispute it. Whose fault is it that justice, by any standards, is not done here?”

Chekov frowned. “We didn’t ask to be ambushed…”

“We didn’t ask you to come and interfere. And I don’t very much care what you think of our traditions. But I suggest you have to come to terms with them.”

“Yes, sir. I see that.”

“You are more important to your squad than Varn is, in theory. That’s why he takes the lashes, rather than you. If you were tempted to do something you knew was against regulations, to strike a man under your command, for example, would you be any more likely to do it because you knew Varn would be punished for it rather than you? Wouldn’t the lashes be a disincentive, wherever they fell?”

Chekov felt himself go cold. “You’d punish Varn because I hit him?”

“Pavel, who suffers for your errors? Your men do, my people do. You’re an officer. You know this. You shouldn’t need to be beaten to have it made clear to you. Should you? This shouldn’t be a problem, because it should never have to happen, should it?”

“No, sir.”

“Several people saw you strike Varn the other morning. I can’t ignore that. It will be dealt with at the next drumming…”

“His back won’t have healed from this time.”

“I know. Why did you hit him anyway?”

“Because… Because I thought he’d hurt Liiz. But he hadn’t.”

“Oh, that wonderful Federation justice.”

“You can’t beat him because I hit him for something he hadn’t even done. You can’t…”

“It’ll only be six or ten lashes. If you really want to take them yourself, it’s up to you. But you’ll have to get dressed afterwards and go straight back on duty as if nothing had happened. You are more important than your second. I need you in Kress’ office. I’ll only let you do this if you understand that. Kress will expect that, anyway. If he loses your labour because I’m soft with you over this, he’s not going to thank me, is he?”

Chekov turned and looked at the post and the metal cuffs and the whip that had been left lying on the ground, stiffening as the blood on it dried black. He thought of Varn, so much bigger and stronger, unable to get up by himself. Six lashes might be sustainable. Ten wouldn’t. “I’m not sure… I can’t be certain I’ll be able to do that.”

“We could split it, six lashes at the next drumming, six at the following one.”

“But that’s…”

“You don’t think ten lashes at once is worse than two lots of six?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Pavel, what you are doing is telling me the way I run my army is wrong. That you could do better. That I am a savage. Let me tell you, until Rae, I have never had to beat a Commander’s second more than once. Most of them never feel a lash at all. I’m not trying to make this easy for you. All I’m doing is trying to give you a way out of a bad situation entirely of your own making.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. I think I could… I’m sure I could take six lashes and go back on duty.”

“Very well.” Eaye cleared his throat noisily. “You’re not happy, with Liiz? It seems a little perverse, to ask your wife to nurse the very man she prefers to you. Are you sure you’re not trying to push them together?”

“I don’t want to be married to her. I can’t imagine why she agreed to marry me. But I expect we’ll work out something in the end.”

Eaye nodded. “You most certainly will. And soon.”

***

Kirk was waiting for his officers in the transporter room. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“Apparently they’d bucked their ideas up,” McCoy explained. “Behr got through what he needed to do with them in no time. We could have come back sooner.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“They seemed reluctant to see the back of us. And I’d say they’ve had a major falling out with the Klingons…”

“There were still Klingons there,” Sulu interrupted.

“Yes, but the Klingons thought they were being far too nice to us. They seem to think we’ve offered the Barraggees something, or done some sort of deal with them.”

“We haven’t.”

McCoy shrugged. “I know. But I can’t explain the change of attitude. Oh, and there was something else.” He nodded at Sulu. “Lieutenant?”

“I asked about Chekov, Captain. They claimed they didn’t know anything but I got the impression that they did. They made a general point that if he’d been killed, or the way they put it, if he’d been skinned, the Duke would have sent us his skin.” Sulu gagged on the words but forced himself to carry on. “But what wasn’t good news, although I can’t explain it given their sudden friendliness, was that the man Chekov killed was some sort of hero to them. Unless it was someone else with the same name, but I don’t think so. They made sure we knew that they had an obligation of some kind to Rae, Em’s son.”

“Maybe he’s alive and they intend to kill him, if the Duke doesn’t.” Kirk almost wished he hadn’t put that idea into words. He seemed to have put himself in check.

“Maybe. And if that is the case, Captain, shouldn’t we do something?”


	9. Chapter 9

Chekov’s head pounded at him, but with the hangover came the familiar feeling that whatever he’d done in the name of drink last night, he was now safe from retribution in his bunk. He opened his eyes.

“Good morning, Pavel.”

“Liiz…”

“You sound surprised.”

“I thought I was… I was back on my ship.” He sat up and groaned. “What time is it?”

She slipped out of bed and padded on bare feet to open the shutters. He realised why it had seemed so dark. Outside, rain in solid grey sheets battered the greyer walls of the castle.

“Rain…”

“What about it?”

“I just… When you live in space for months and you think of weather, you think about sun and snow. You never think about rain.”

“It’s still quite early. I’ll make us both something hot for breakfast, to keep the chills out. This is the beginning of the end of summer, I’m afraid.”

She performed the curious early morning rituals that brought the range back to life, set the kettle over the fiercest heat, then disappeared into the bathroom.

Chekov sat up, tucked a pillow behind his back and set about trying to remember everything that had happened the previous day. After the drumming he’d reported to Kress as usual. Or a little more tense than usual. At noon he’d returned to his apartment in some trepidation but neither Varn nor Liiz had been there. His mother-in-law had plainly been told to watch out for him. With her grandson in her arms, she’d put lunch on the table and turned to go, leaving him to eat in solitude.

“Uh, you can leave him with me, if you would like to have a rest for a few minutes.”

She couldn’t have looked more astonished and he panicked for a moment that he’d done something fundamentally improper by offering to watch the baby. Maybe Trask warriors just didn’t do that. Or maybe Rae just didn’t do that. At any rate, the baby’s grandmother hesitantly handed Tor over to his stepfather. The child grinned and cooed.

“Bring him to me when you’re finished.”

“Yes. I will.”

“Liiz doesn’t…”

“Doesn’t what?”

“Know seed from husk.”

He’d chatted a little self-consciously to the child. Suddenly he realised that nearly half an hour had passed and Tor was watching him in solemn incomprehension as he related his entire biography up to age about seven. Evidently the narrative, in Russian, had a soothing effect. Tor yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“Very good. Back to your grandmother. Maybe you’ll be the first Trask child ever to grow up speaking Russian…” He stopped, words choked off at that bland vision of his long term future here. Get through the next few days, of knowing that the Enterprise was still here and he couldn’t reach her… Get through the next few weeks, through two cold mornings when he was going to have to walk out there onto the parade ground, take off his shirt, let them chain him up and… The first time would be worse, because his imagination would paint such a frightening picture of what was about to happen. And the second time would be worse all over again, because he would know just exactly what was about to happen. And then would he just ’get through’ the rest of his life? If I do end up stuck here, he told himself, if it does come to that, I won’t just be an exile. I will make the best of it. He picked the baby up. “And it won’t do you any harm to learn Russian. No harm at all.”

In the afternoon, what he’d begun to think of as the office routine was disrupted yet again. Kress was absent and he’d gone back to the unfinished work of the morning, correlating reports of manpower and transport in the province. He’d guessed that this was preliminary to siting some manufacturing scheme but no one actually said as much, let alone what might be manufactured. He was interrupted almost immediately.

“Lieutenant.”

Taleek, the communications operator, who never seemed to leave his post even for the swiftest calls of nature, swivelled in his chair to look at the liaison officer. “The General wishes to speak to you.”

Chekov came closer to the screens and keyboards of Taleek’s domain than he’d ever dared before. Here was the key to escape, if one existed. With this, he could contact the Enterprise and be off this world before they traced the illicit communication. If only Taleek had been careless. If he hadn’t locked it all into frozen uselessness when he retired at night. If he’d ever turned his back for ten seconds during the day.

“General?”

“I want you to beam up to the Fayzhal. I need some background data. Immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

The screen blanked and he turned to Taleek. “The Fayzhal is a heavy cruiser?”

“The flagship of the attack force in this sector, yes.” Taleek’s eyes glowed enviously. “Spit on his decks for me, Lieutenant. I mean to serve aboard such as that before too much longer.” The technician’s hands danced over his board. “Transporter control, Fayzhal. One to beam up from location QkA Nine.”

Transporters had no way of registering the allegiance of those who used them so there was no reason for the panic that gripped him along with the beam. Unless it was Mister Scott’s apocryphal tales of the dramatic and gruesome failures of Klingon transporters… Either way, he found himself aboard the Fayzhal, whole and facing only routine security. The disruptor barrels were almost immediately swung down to point at the deck.

“Take him to the General.”

And he was walking, unrestrained and accompanied by a single Klingon rating, who barely seemed to be paying attention, along the corridors of an Imperial heavy cruiser. Having survived thus far, the next problem was dealing with whatever the General had brought him up here to do. He’d absorbed every fact he could lay his hands on about his place of exile, both as routine preparation before beaming down with Kirk in the first place and since his capture. The end result was less than the contents of a printed pocket tourist guide and he didn’t attempt to deceive himself that it amounted to more than that. The question now was could he deceive Kress?

***

“We’ll need a large work force. They need not be well-educated, but they should be intelligent, up to a point. The facilities will be rudimentary, as you see…”

That rarest of creatures, at least in Federation space, a female Klingon and, it seemed, a civilian as well, was addressing a small meeting of senior officers.

“Doctor Madeek, a moment please.” Kress got to his feet and came over to the door. The rating vanished once he saw that Chekov was clearly expected. “Come in, Pavel. We’ll need you to answer some questions.”

Kress didn’t trust Chekov to make his own way to one of the vacant chairs at the oval table. He steered the ensign to a place where he would be the natural focus of attention and forced him into the seat. Whatever Kress’ intentions, they didn’t quite come off. Madeek was too natural a focus of attention herself, particularly for half a dozen Klingon males far from home. She continued as if she were oblivious to their interest.

“I have listed these centres of population which are large enough and adequately supplied with secondary industries…”

The wall screen lit up with twenty or more blue/green lights. Chekov tried quickly to put names to the locations. The queasy panic he felt when he realised he couldn’t name above five of them almost convinced him that he might as well own up and throw himself on the uncertain mercy of the gathering.

“…but our information is not detailed enough to distinguish an optimal choice. Speed is essential now, in the light of the recent message. Unless we all want to see our investment, our personal investment in this sector wasted. General Kress?”

Kress shrugged lazily. “Tell him what you want, Doctor. He’ll know the answers.”

Madeek turned her attention to the newcomer. Her eyes were an inhuman bottle green, matched perfectly by her skin tight outfit. Her short dark hair stood out perpendicular to her elegant corrugated skull and her skin had the burnished glow of red metal. She drew the ridges of her brow into a close, thoughtful frown. “Firstly, we are seeking to locate a processing plant for complex duo-halogen compounds. The raw materials are available on this world, easily and cheaply, using non-conservative extraction methods, but will require transport. The scale of this project will dwarf any of the existing industry. Secondly, we are planning a large medical complex. Manpower will be the deciding factor and, due to the delicate nature of the work to be done here, a favourable bias in the local population…”

“Excuse me, Doctor Madeek.” Chekov hadn’t noticed Drak, sitting quietly at the end of the table. “I think you can be quite open with the lieutenant.”

“As you wish, Commander.” She was arrogantly unconcerned. “The medical complex is to be built under the pretext of providing basic services for the local population. When hostilities commence in this sector it will become a military facility. Similarly the…”

“The duo-halogens will form the basis for weapons manufacture, presumably to stockpile in anticipation of these hostilities. But you will be producing pharmaceuticals and industrial plastics in small quantities.” Chekov heard his own voice die away into silence.

For a moment no one reacted then Drak said smoothly, “Of course. So, Lieutenant, can you suggest optimum locations? Bear in mind, that by the time these projects are running, you might be the native figurehead in charge of one of them. If you’re very clever you might be more than that.”

Chekov kept his eyes on the map. Bluff, he told himself. You can bluff. Drak hasn’t seen through you yet. Why should he realise you’re a fake today? “Uh, there are several key variables to consider. I need a clearer idea of your requirements.” He could almost hear a count down in the back of his mind, ticking off the seconds until he gave himself away. He ignored it. If he could force their attention to the locations he knew something about…

“Then we’ll leave you to discuss it with the doctor.” Drak pushed his chair back and stood up. Two Captains, a General and two further Commanders accepted his suggestion without question.

When the door closed behind them, Chekov did not relax. He had no reason to suppose that Madeek was any less dangerous because she was a woman and a civilian. For all he knew, the opposite might be true.

“I see that you’re more intelligent than Rae — whoever you are.”

When Chekov had visualised being found out, tried to work out how he’d react, he’d always seen himself in a place where he could at least run. In the half light of the Klingon cruiser, there was nowhere to run to. 

“You knew Rae.” It was a statement of the obvious appalling truth, his tongue doing the running.

“Yes. So — who are you?”

He wiped sweat slick hands on the coarse fabric of his pants. “According to Trask law, I am Rae, Em’s son. But as you have realised…”

“This must be the law of substitution in operation. I thought that was an antique… but then Eaye’s an antique. So why did you kill Rae?”

It occurred to Chekov belatedly that he was going to get away with this. The realisation was surprisingly close to disappointment. It would have been easier — almost — to be found out.

“For Liiz? Surely not.”

“It was an accident. During an ambush — I didn’t see in time that he was unarmed.”

She kept her green eyes on him. “I had a use for Rae… well, several uses. When he didn’t meet me as arranged last night… Shall we say I don’t like being disappointed? You understand me?”

“I’m not sure that I do, Doctor…”

“Madeek. Call me Madeek. Should I call you Rae? Kress called you something else…”

“He called me Pavel, that’s my name.” Chekov took a step back as she began to circle around him.

“I’ve never heard that name before. Where are you from?”

“Hxharra. It’s not a… It is an unusual name.”

He realised with a start that the purring growl he’d been trying to place for the last twenty seconds had its source deep in the Klingon’s throat.

She darted out a hand and caught his wrist in an implacable grip. Chekov leaned back enough to resist the pull of her arm. 

“Pavel, I know a little Trask law. You should take Rae’s place…”

“I know, as a husband and father, not… not as your… as your…”

“Lover.”

“Lover,” he echoed, almost automatically.

“Commander Drak doesn’t know you are not Rae, does he? Why did the Duke deceive him?”

“I don’t think the Duke did,” Chekov protested, rather too hastily. “It wouldn’t have occurred to him to mention it, that’s all. He had no reason to suppose it mattered to Drak who I was…”

“Ah. Well, Pavel, I see you’re not happy about this, but… Well, you’re further away from help than you’ve ever been in your life before. Aren’t you?”

Chekov nodded slowly, not because that was strictly true, but because he knew full well there was only a bulkhead between him and an indeterminate number of Klingon warriors, who’d probably see things from Madeek’s point of view rather than his. He let her pull him closer. 

“You’ve never met a Klingon female before, have you?”

“No,” he lied. Remembering the one occasion on which he had didn’t help him to feel any better now.

She smiled. “Good. Rae was less fun after he lost his innocence. I shall enjoy a fresh start.”

***

“I presume your recommendation was only what she told you to say.” Drak walked a couple of paces ahead of Chekov to the transporter room, the meeting concluded.

The ensign started out of his daze. “Sir?”

“She’s been studying the Trask for some time. A brilliant analyst but not entirely trusted. I think someone suspects her of having an inclination to identify too closely with her subjects. How long have you… known her?”

Chekov glanced up at the commander and ordered himself not to look away again.

“For all the — reservations — there are about her, she has some influence with the people who make decisions. You may have done yourself a favour. Your instincts are impressive.”

“I think we were satisfying her instincts rather than mine,” Chekov said bitterly.

He took his place on the transporter pad and watched Drak’s smile vanish along with its owner. 

The rain sodden parade ground firmed up around them. The gravel kept the mud at bay, barely. Chekov expected Drak to go straight inside. Among the new things he’d learned today was an almost feline dislike for wet weather among the occupying forces. But the Klingon remained standing where he was.

“You’re angry,” he told Chekov.

“Yes, I am angry. Did anyone on that ship really care what I thought, or was it merely an excuse for her to..?”

“She told me she wanted your input into the discussion. I didn’t realise she wanted something else. But in fact, it probably was useful to her in getting her way. I doubt your technical and economic information is superior to hers, but she’s a civilian and a female. Most of the Klingon military would rather trust one of their own, a man and a soldier, even if an alien, before a mere hen-academic. Besides, her brain frightens them. They can understand how your mind works, or they think they can.”

“Oh.”

The Commander made no move to go inside and let the ensign escape him. “Why didn’t you refuse her then? She’s no warrior.” Drak laughed disbelievingly. “Are you going to tell me she forced you?”

“I didn’t think I had a choice.”

The rain penetrated the ensign’s newly short hair, striking cold against his skin in a way that felt alien and unclean. Eaye’s castle seemed to have turned into a lowering monster in the fading afternoon light, a monster that was swallowing him up. The thought of Liiz, inside in the warm lamplight, was like a lure to tempt him further inside. He wanted to soothe her cool contempt onto the fire Drak ignited in him.

“Really.” Drak smiled mockingly. “This must be an uncomfortable reversal of fortune for you. Of course you had a choice. Letting other people use you is a weakness, even if it is only so you get what you want in the end. I can’t afford for you to have weaknesses.” Drak shook his head then apparently changed the subject. “You know a good deal about the types of industrial process we need.”

“You told me it might be in my interests to be well informed.”

“Hm. You’re quick to take my advice. I like that. But what are your interests? What do you want so much that you’re prepared to tolerate Madeek, and Kress? You’ve set your sights on something and whatever it is, you really don’t mind what you have to do to stay alive and get it, do you?”

Chekov didn’t respond.

“I suppose a Trask child might pick up that message, living in a world of constant civil war and changing loyalties. The thought of a stable, if alien, overlord might be reassuring.”

Drak seemed to be weighing him up, trying to make sense of him.

“I’m going to ask you to do something else for me now, to tell me who the Duke is closest to, who he might turn to if he decided to mount any resistance to our plans. I also need to know his intentions towards his neighbours this winter. Keep me informed. In return… Well, I’ll try to see that your life isn’t unnecessarily unpleasant. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant at all. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand you.” What Chekov couldn’t understand was why he so much resented Drak’s assumption that he would willingly collaborate. After all, this wasn’t his world to start with. 

“Excellent.” 

Chekov shifted his position uncomfortably, eager to be dismissed, unsure how to achieve that. Drak didn’t seem to have finished. Then the Klingon lunged forward, and Chekov, taken completely off guard, was flat on his back in the oozing mud, his head ringing, wondering how he’d managed to misunderstand the Commander so completely.

“Get up!”

He rolled over and got as far as his hands and knees before Drak impatiently began to pull him back to his feet. He let the Klingon half succeed before he tucked forward and flipped the larger man over his shoulder.

Drak landed with a splash and sat up, laughing. “You fight like a Terran. Where are your fists?”

“Get up and I’ll show you!”

“Excuse me.”

Both combatants turned in response to the interruption, Chekov genuinely startled, Drak discernibly faking it. A dripping oilskin draped like a cowl around his head and shoulders and wooden overshoes separating his leather boots from the slurry underfoot, the Duke looked like a pre-revolution Russian peasant.

“Pavel, is this becoming a habit? You’re lucky everyone but me is indoors with the shutters down. I don’t have to report this sort of thing to myself if I don’t want to. As a matter of discipline, Commander, I discourage my officers from brawling. It’s a question of setting an example, you understand. Perhaps if you gentlemen have some disagreement, you could settle it verbally, or elsewhere.”

Both men climbed to their feet. Drak was still smiling tolerantly. “You’ll have to excuse young Pavel, Duke. I think I’ve offended him.”

“How?” Eaye looked concerned, frowning until his massive eyebrows nearly obscured his eyes.

“It’s an old Klingon custom. When we conquer a world, we take presents home to our women. Eh, Pavel?”

Chekov stared at the water pouring off the hem of the Duke’s cape.

“Pavel?”

This time it was Eaye demanding a response. He reached out a hand to Chekov’s shoulder and pulled him closer. “Have you quite finished with him for today, Commander?”

“We have.” The Klingon turned and walked up the steps into Kress’ office.

***

“Take that wet gear off. Do you want mulled wine or some soup?”

Behind the eastern end of the great hall was a stair to a smaller, more domestic chamber. Chekov caught his first glimpse of the Lady of Eaye as the Duke hustled him in through the door and gestured him towards the fire.

“Uh, wine, please.”

“My dear, I need to talk to Pavel and I think your presence will embarrass him. Ask Genim to bring us a jug of the Marquis’ best. And make sure it’s piping hot.”

She smiled charmingly, picked up a portable computer from the table where she’d been seated and made a demure withdrawal.

“My wife’s almost as terrifyingly intelligent as the one I’ve landed you with,” Eaye said unexpectedly.

“Sir?”

“Never mind. What was happening with you and Drak?”

The Duke’s abrupt changes of subject were making Chekov feel quite disorientated. He concentrated on obeying the order he’d been given and unlacing his jacket. “I think he hit me because he saw you coming and didn’t want you to think we were getting on too well.”

“Why wouldn’t he want me to think that?”

“He’d just asked me to provide him with information about plans you might have to mount any form of resistance against the Klingon presence.”

Chekov said this with a degree of irony. The Trask were all but rolling over onto their backs and inviting the Klingons to tickle their stomachs. The Duke’s response surprised him. “Well, we’ll have to be careful what you feed him. What did he offer you in return for this?”

“But you’re not planning any resistance, are you?”

Eaye shook his head. “Pavel, winter’s on its way. It’s the time to fight, to campaign. We’ve had hints from our allies the Klingons that maybe it would not be appropriate this year for any major tribe to make an assault on another, that perhaps peace would be more productive, that a mobilisation this winter would put at risk certain Klingon sponsored projects. They must learn that we are Trask, we are warriors. We will fight, whether it is convenient for them or not.”

Chekov finally forced the memory of Madeek to the back of his mind and concentrated on the Duke’s questions. “They want to place at least two major facilities here on Keera. An explosives plant and a military medical facility, both as part of plans for aggressive expansion in this sector. There’s some urgency about it.”

“Where? Where do they want to put them?”

“They talked about Neevas. My lord…”

“What?”

“Apart from wanting information about your plans, Commander Drak has suggested that…”

“Hm? What’s he suggested?”

“I think they want eventually to have a puppet government here, of natives who are sympathetic to them. That suggests to me…”

“Get on with it.”

“They’re planning short term, massive exploitation of Keera. After a few years there will be nothing left worth having. They will withdraw, apart from a nominal presence and a native government which is sufficiently sympathetic to them to prevent the Federation moving back in. They’ll probably provide that government with enough support to keep it in power no matter how unpopular it is. In effect, they intend to reduce you to slavery, first to the Empire and then to a regime of their own choosing.”

“Are you sure this isn’t Federation propaganda?”

“I can get you evidence, I think. Reports, computer files… Maybe names of collaborators. Now I understand what they are trying to do…”

The Duke’s servant returned with a tray bearing a tall, steaming jug and two thick glass goblets. Eaye watched him in silence as he poured the hot, spiced wine and handed a goblet to either man. Chekov wrapped his hands round it. The fire had warmed him, but he still felt a bitter cold inside that was nothing to do with the weather. He wanted to ask the Duke if in return for this piece of espionage he’d change his mind and release him, but something in the nobleman’s brisk, businesslike manner told him now was not the time. Chekov had never wanted to stay here, and having tasted what it meant to be a puppet to the Klingons, he wanted it even less under the circumstances he was now forced to describe to Eaye. But he was only doing what Eaye presumably had the right to order any of his men to do, only taking the place of the man he’d killed. It was hardly Eaye’s fault if Rae had made a place for himself with Madeek. The Duke would just tell him again that it was his own doing. And, at the very least, Eaye would want to make sure he kept the bargain they’d made at the drumming. The Duke’s pride was tied to respect for Trask laws and traditions. If he did agree to release Chekov at the very last minute, he’d probably send him back with those ten stripes fresh on his back.

“There will be war this winter,” the Duke said, “as there has been every winter since before the first stone of this castle was laid. If I do not harry the Marquis, he will set his dogs on me. The Klingons know we are men of war. They will accept it, even if it doesn’t accord with their own plans. You may inform Drak that my intentions are not secret. There will be war.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was he talking about, taking presents to their women?”

Wine and embarrassment conspired to flush the ensign’s face.

“Well?”

“Rae was… fraternising with a civilian advisor on their flag ship, a woman, a Doctor Madeek. She had arranged to meet him and obviously, he hadn’t turned up. Drak didn’t realise that I wasn’t who she wanted to see.”

“So, the fact that you killed Rae came out, but not…”

“No, she… For some reason she didn’t say anything. She understood the legal… the nature of my position here. She… accepted the substitution.”

“I am sorry, Pavel, I didn’t intend that you should be humiliated like that. I dare say Drak found it most amusing. I don’t like him…”

“No, I… I think he thought I was a willing partner. He said I should have refused to… But I was…”

“Too frightened to turn her down?” Eaye picked the jug up and refilled Chekov’s goblet to the brim. “I don’t blame you. As I said, I’m sorry, but…”

“But it’s my own fault. If I hadn’t killed Rae…”

“Drink that up. Drink it! You’re cold as a river fish. I was about to say that I don’t think Kress, or Drak, more to the point, will allow you to resign your position in the general’s office. Otherwise I’d send you away from here for a while. Not willingly, I badly need someone to be my ears in the Klingon councils. I need that evidence. I have no grudge against you but I need you there. None of my place men are sharp enough. Liiz would make a good attempt…”

Chekov couldn’t stop himself asking. “If I do get the information you need, will you…”

“Let you leave? No.”

The ensign thumped his goblet down on the table, misjudging its height by a generous margin. “Then stop pretending you care what happens to me. You wouldn’t raise a finger to help if Kress decided to use me for target practice. You can do whatever you like with me, just as Drak can, and…” 

“Stop!” Eaye was scowling. “You took an oath of service, Pavel. You can’t start setting conditions on it now. And of course I can’t do whatever I like. I’m as much bound by the law as you are. As I’m sure Drak is, although I doubt Klingon law gives much protection to people in your position. If you’ve a complaint about my behaviour, you can take it to the Provincial Assize, if we can’t settle it amicably first.”

“I only want one thing from you,” Chekov said stubbornly.

“You wanted your captain’s life,” Eaye pointed out to him. “And I gave it to you.”

The Duke waited and eventually Chekov swallowed his anger and offered up a grudging, “Yes, sir.”

“At the very least,” Eaye sighed, “I can, and will, protect you from anything worse than the natural and legal consequences of your own decisions and actions. I wish you would accept that I’m not your enemy. I’m really not trying to make you unhappy. If there are any other problems…”

“Commander Drak knows there is something wrong about me. He can’t know everything, but…”

“Why do you say that?”

“He says things… As if he were blackmailing me.”

Eaye swilled his goblet thoughtfully and put it down. “Perhaps he knows something about Rae, rather than you. There, you’ve got a better colour now, and your hands don’t feel so icy.” The Duke had taken his hands with a rough familiarity. Now, he squeezed them and let them fall. “Go on. Go home. Get a good night’s rest, if that son of yours will let you.”

“Yes, sir.” Chekov picked his jacket off the table. The alcohol was making his eyelids heavy and he was too tired to protest that Tor wasn’t his son and he couldn’t go home because the Duke wouldn’t let him.

The Duke’s servant opened a door for him and ushered him down some stairs. He realised as the man vanished again that he’d lost his bearings. He had no idea where he was in relation to the great hall and the little yard he was in, awash with overflow from the gutters high above and lit with glimmers of light from a dozen windows, was unfamiliar. He picked the one door out of it that was ajar and found himself in a tack room. Harnesses and saddles gleamed warmly in the light of a single lamp. Xeris, one foot in a shallow bowl of steaming water, the other resting on the opposite thigh, appeared to be cutting his toenails.

“I hear that Klingon spoiled your skin.” The gaoler put his knife down and stood up. “Come here.”

Chekov had no wish to obey him but the only other door to the room lay beyond the man and he didn’t have the energy to argue. As he came closer, a rich aroma of herbs rose from the hot water and momentarily cleared his head.

Xeris obviously noticed his reaction. He reached across to where several bunches of dried leaves hung from one of the many racks that filled the room.

“Put that in your pillow tonight. You’ll sleep better for it, I promise you. Let me see your arms.”

Chekov shrugged and unbuttoned his cuffs. The sleeves were wide enough to roll up easily to his shoulders. Xeris ran a finger over the marks Drak had cut into him.

“They’re healing. I’ve got something I could rub into them to make the scars stand out whiter, although it’s a bit late.”

“I don’t want them to stand out.”

“Ah, well then.” The man bent double and straightened up again with a small, dusty looking jar which he opened and sniffed at cautiously. “This’ll make ’em as good as vanish.”

“What are you? The doctor as well as the executioner?” Chekov let the gaoler massage the pungent grease into his arms. As the man’s fingers worked, some of the stiffness from the fight with Drak, which he hadn’t noticed before, seemed to melt away.

“I just know how to take care of skin.” Xeris waved his arm around the room. “Horse skin, man’s skin, it’s all the same. If you treat it properly, it keeps the weather out. It all dries up and cracks in the summer and then there’s trouble come winter. Feet especially. If people would remember to take care of it…”

“Have you finished?”

“Yes.” The jar was sealed again and returned to its place under the gaoler’s seat. “Go on then. I’ve work to do.”

“I don’t believe you skin people.”

“What makes you think that? I assure you I do, if necessary.”

“How many have you skinned?”

“It doesn’t happen as much as it used to.”

“How many?”

“Enough that I’d know how if I have to skin you.”

“Sam said he’d seen it done.”

“Nah. He’s lying. Boys always say they’ve seen it. Not here, he hasn’t.”

“Because you wouldn’t let him watch?”

“No. He’s too young. No one’s been skinned in his lifetime.”

“So you would not have skinned Captain Kirk…”

“I could have done, if the Duke had wanted me to.”

Chekov wasn’t sure if he should feel relieved or cheated. He pulled his sleeves back down and turned to go, still holding the fragrant bouquet of herbs. The door opened as he reached it and he stepped back quickly out of the way.

“Xeris…”

It was his second. Chekov was quite surprised the man was up and walking around. Varn’s shirt was hanging loose, all the buttons unused, and he was holding his shoulders a little stiffly. “It’s burning like fury.”

“Then it’s healing. Don’t worry. Come in and I’ll find some salve for you.”

“Why don’t you go to a doctor?” Chekov couldn’t help asking. Varn jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Because I know about skin,” Xeris answered.

“You know as much about skin as I do about fission powered spacecraft.”

Xeris paused in helping Varn to remove his shirt, eyed Chekov and guessed correctly that the ensign knew precious little about that topic. “My father taught me all he knew, and his father taught him. It’s true I haven’t had the opportunities they had…”

The sight of Varn’s mangled back was too much for Chekov. He sat down heavily on one of the benches that ringed the room. “How can you walk around?”

“Mm? Mainly because it’s better than lying on my front any longer. Oh, and thank you…”

“What for?”

“Getting me off the last seven.”

“It didn’t cost me anything.” Despite Varn’s obvious gratitude, Chekov found it very difficult to be friendly towards the man.

“But you didn’t know that.”

“I’ll warm this up,” Xeris interrupted, producing a small irregular bottle from his stores. “And in the meantime…” Another bottle came out, and three rather cracked and chipped stoneware mugs. He lay the first bottle over the top of the lamp and poured generous tots from the second into each mug.

“Drink up, gentlemen.” He turned the first bottle, as if it needed to be toasted evenly.

Chekov sniffed the mug. Whatever it contained was less pungent than all the other ingredients in the room’s redolence. He tried a sip and almost spat it out.

“What is it?”

“Almovar,” Xeris said with a grin. “It’s strong.”

“Triple distilled,” Varn added, obviously enjoying his.

“And aged in leather for twelve years.”

So that was what it was, the rancid taste of old boots. A nasty suspicion occurred to the reluctant imbiber. “What sort of leather?”

“Now that’s a secret, handed down from father to son.”

Xeris’ evasion reminded Chekov of one of the many things that had been puzzling him about his new circumstances. “Don’t you distinguish between sons and sons-in-law?”

Xeris shook his head. He’d retrieved the bottle from above the lamp and was turning it. Its contents appeared to be slowly liquifying. “I inherited my trade from my wife’s father, same as you’ll inherit Em’s lands in good time. If either of them had had sons, well, I’d be a dredger most like and Trask knows what Rae would have ended up as.”

“Why? I mean, he must have had some ability. His squad seems pretty well trained. I think they’re trained to do some stupid things, but…”

“I don’t think Rae was due much of the credit for that,” Xeris said heavily. “Eh, Varn?”

Varn looked embarrassed. “He wasn’t the worst commander I’ve met.”

“He had a good second, that’s all. And he let you do all the work while he took the credit.”

“That’s not really true…”

“Let me tell you about Rae.” Xeris picked up his mug, having returned the bottle of ointment to its slow cooking over the lamp, and sat down as if Rae’s story would be a long one. “His father was a dredger, like mine. His mother was an eel trapper. Not the most noble of families, but good, hardworking people. Well, you’ve met his mother.” Chekov had seen her around from time to time, certainly, but his awkwardness and her apparent shyness had prevented them actually speaking. “Now, Rae had a friend, also from a hardworking family, farmers in this case. And this friend was ambitious and the youngest of three sons. He was going to do his spell in the Duke’s army like any young man but he aimed to do well and make a career of it. Of course he couldn’t hope to be a place man, coming from where he did, but there was no reason he couldn’t be a good second and hope the Duke would notice him and find him a position in the castle.”

Varn had obviously heard the story before. He sat down and buried his nose in his mug.

“But this young farmer’s son was lucky. He was good looking and everyone spoke well of him and one day, one of the tenants’ daughters happened to notice him. Even more fortunately for him, the girl in question had no brothers. Of course, her father wouldn’t have been pleased if she’d married this lad, given that he was nobody, but they made a pretty pair and one couldn’t help wishing them well.” Xeris now judged his bottle to be ready. He unstoppered it and poured a little of the contents onto his hands. “Turn round then, lad. Anyway, Rae was ambitious too. He was doing his seventy tides like the rest and he started to have ideas. If this friend of his could take a short cut to the top, maybe he could. He was good looking too, better looking really, only it was more looks than heart if you know what I mean. So he stepped in and stole Liiz from his friend.”

That sounded pretty much like the Rae Chekov was coming to know and hate.

“Now, as I said earlier, Liiz’ father would have liked his only daughter to have married a tenant’s son, someone who knew the business, but Liiz, she stormed and sulked and badgered and wept until he gave in. He knew Rae was a bad lot and if he’d stuck to his guns over that, he might have got his way. There was plenty of evidence if he’d cared to look for it. But he didn’t. He just said “My daughter isn’t marrying no peasant’s son,” and Liiz fought him until he caved in. No credit to her. She’d give any man a hard time and that was the one thing that comforted those of us who had to watch all of this. Rae didn’t know what he was letting himself in for.”

The ointment obviously stung because Varn flinched and cursed at Xeris’ ministrations.

“I see.” Chekov in fact had lost track of what he was supposed to be getting out of this story. It did at least maybe explain why it was so out of the question for Liiz to marry Varn. He presumably was also of peasant stock and her father was reluctant to make the same mistake twice. It made sense of Em’s incoherent regrets the other morning too. Liiz hadn’t been prepared to admit that she’d made a mistake over Rae, so her father wouldn’t back down and admit that his snobbery, or whatever, had been unjustified.

“I could have forgiven him for Liiz until I realised what he was doing to her,” Varn said, just as Chekov was about to ask what had happened to Rae’s friend.

The ensign finished his mug of leather flavoured alcohol instead. “I’m surprised someone didn’t kill Rae earlier.”

“Yes,” Xeris agreed. “I was a bit surprised about that too.”

Varn put his shirt back on without comment.

“More?” The gaoler held up the bottle of Almovar but Chekov shook his head.

When will the next drumming be?” he asked instead.

“Soon enough,” Varn told him.

“When there are enough cases outstanding to make it worthwhile,” Xeris elaborated unhelpfully. “Why?”

“I simply… I felt I should know what to expect. I do not like being constantly taken by surprise. Thank you. I’ll go home. If you can tell me the way…”


	10. Chapter 10

Chekov eventually persuaded himself that he’d rather get out of bed than have Drak come and look for him. He concentrated on thinking deeply about McCoy’s hangover cures, hoping for something like a placebo effect.

When Liiz reappeared from the bathroom, singing softly to herself, he was dressed and buttoning his boots. She watched him for a moment. “What is that thing?”

“This?” He held the hook out to her. “A button hook. Haven’t you ever seen one before?”

“No. It’s ingenious. I thought you were just wearing boots like ours because you were travelling incognito.”

“I was. I do not usually wear boots of this type. But I suppose people on Earth must have sometime in the past. A friend lent me this.”

“What sort of a friend?”

He finished the other boot by hand, considerably more slowly. “The sort the Duke never wants me to see again. And I had promised to return it to her.”

She turned it over in her hands, admiring the mother-of-pearl handle and the worn engraving on the metal parts. “May I keep it?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because I can see it means a lot to you, I suppose. I feel you… you’re here, living with us, we’re completely dependent on you, and we don’t mean anything to you at all. That’s a little risky, for us. I want… to feel you have something invested in us. Even if it’s only a bit of metal. I know that must sound stupid, but… Please?”

He didn’t want her to have it. He wanted to keep it with him. “She wasn’t a girlfriend, or anything like that.”

Why did I use the past tense? he asked himself. Uhura still is my friend. I will see her again.

“No, that isn’t the point. I know you don’t love me, you don’t even like me. That’s why I need something, so I know you have to…”

“You can’t have it. It isn’t mine to give away. But you can keep it until I leave.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She pocketed it and started singing again. Then she stopped and smiled at him. “I’ll make sure you’re buried with it. Because you won’t be leaving any other way.”

***

Chekov watched his men moving quietly through the early morning drizzle.

It was still early. Instead of going straight to Kress’ office, Chekov had decided to look in on his squad and see how Diek was coping with his sudden promotion into Varn’s position. Today was the seventh day of his exile: four more remained before the Enterprise left. He heard of his friends daily, usually in uncomplimentary terms, but they had never seemed more far away than they did now. He’d begun to bend to the life of the castle, sleep through the first dawn chorus and wake appropriately at the second, not notice the extra tug of the planet’s gravity as he climbed the stairs at night, anticipate the dishes that appeared at different meal times, prefer dark ale to light, even… even look forward to seeing Liiz. However abrasive she was, at least she allowed him to feel their room was a refuge of sorts. He’d spent longer holidays in less alien places and still felt more of a stranger than he did here.

“It’s a survival mechanism. I’m trying to make the best of it, and I shouldn’t be…”

“Excuse me… were you talking to me?”

He glanced sideways and was surprised to find that Kronor was leaning on the battlements a mere metre or so away. The half-Klingon rubbed thoughtfully at his beard, reminding Chekov of the itchy irritation of his own. “I haven’t been aboard a ship since I had one and half hundred tides. I daresay they’ve changed since then. My father used to take me; we even went to Khlinzai once. I thought to be the son of a Klingon warrior was the most glorious thing you could be — until you were old enough to be a warrior yourself.”

“I suppose you would naturally think that,” Chekov agreed tepidly.

“And you, what were your ambitions?”

“To be a…” He hesitated. There was no word that encompassed the mix of explorer and, yes, some of the time, warrior that made up a Starfleet officer. Then he smiled at himself. They were talking ambition here. “To be a Starship Captain.”

“Were you a weapons officer, or what?”

“Navigator.”

“Tell me where you’ve been, what stars…”

“The furthest I’ve been from Earth…”

“No, the nearest to Khlinzai.”

“The neutral zone, near to…”

“It is the most awesome place, frighteningly beautiful, not like this overgrown piece of rough pasture.” Chekov didn’t need to be a mind-reader to realise that Kronor wanted to talk, not listen.

“…As violent as its children, and as ruthless. But a planet is only a piece of rock, after all. A Klingon is more than his birthplace, or should be. My father taught me what it meant to be a Klingon, a being of honour. To him, honour was everything. It meant to be without fear, without weakness, loyal to the Empire beyond any thought of oneself. That was the honour he taught me, and I prized it above life.”

“Well…”

“When he died, I discovered what it meant to be outside that loyalty, to be weak through no fault of my own, to be…”

“Afraid?”

“No!”

Chekov wondered for a moment if he’d gone too far. Kronor’s snarl was like a cornered animal’s.

“…To be betrayed,” the Klingon continued. “As my father’s people betray everyone who isn’t a full-blooded Klingon like themselves, and every Klingon who isn’t of their family, and every other son of their father at the end of the day. Klingon honour is a broken vessel, Pavel, Em’s son. A thing between a warrior and himself. He must not betray himself. The rest of the universe is nothing. Is that human honour also?”

“No. No, it isn’t.”

“Here. When my father went away for the last time, he left behind some momentos. This one might amuse you.”

Kronor flipped something to him. Chekov fumbled it, almost letting it fly over the battlements before he got both hands round it. It was heavy and ugly and probably twenty years out of date but it was a Starfleet communicator.

“Where did he get this? Do you know?”

“At Hhanosh.”

Chekov didn’t recognise the name but presumably Klingons didn’t remember battles by their Terran appellations. He turned the device over and wondered what Kronor wanted him to say. He’d never handled a communicator remotely like it. Apart from the old-fashioned insignia, he wouldn’t have known its provenance. And yet he wanted to keep it, to hang on to it at all costs.

“Your technology is admirable,” Kronor said diffidently. “I think you could recharge it.”

“You… you’re offering me a way to get back to my ship?”

The Klingon shrugged. “I wouldn’t stop you. I would prefer that you don’t take it with you if you do decide to use it.”

Chekov’s hand froze on the cover. “Why shouldn’t I use it?”

“Because you swore to be loyal to the Duke.”

’It won’t be tuned to the correct frequency but I can adjust that in a matter of seconds. The Enterprise may have her shields raised but if I keep the message short so no one else is alerted, she should be able to cut the shields for long enough to beam me aboard without endangering herself. My duty is to get back to my ship… What do I care what this half-Klingon thinks of me, of humans in general, of Star Fleet… and what the Duke thinks… and Liiz… and Sam…’

“You’d better have it back.”

He thrust it back at Kronor as if was burning him. Kronor shook his head. “You might change your mind.”

“Kronor…”

“Look at that!”

Chekov suddenly found his attention yanked back to his men a hundred feet below, practising hand to hand combat with Kronor’s squad in the rain-drenched scrub that filled most of the castle moat. Diek appeared to have an armlock on Kronor’s second and as they watched, the two men toppled over a bank and crashed heavily into a patch of dense and thorny vegetation. Kronor’s laughter echoed off the lead that draped the low pitched roofs around them.

“Kronor, who is the Duke expecting to fight? Who’s the enemy? When the Federation has left…”

“The enemy is the same as always. The Marquis or the Barraggees or one of the petty warlords from the coast. There’ll be a little local skirmishing, a little jockeying for position, which will go on forever. Trask fight because they’re fighters. They don’t need a reason beyond that. That’s why they couldn’t stand to have the Federation here, trying to steer them into peaceful coexistence…” He made the phrase an insult.

“We don’t tell people how to run their worlds.”

Kronor turned back from the grudge match that was developing below, sat down on the low parapet and looked very seriously at Chekov. “Who’s in charge here?”

The ensign shrugged. “The Eastern Alliance?” He wasn’t sure this wasn’t a trick question.

Kronor nodded. “Today. Tomorrow, who knows? It could be the old Council again. There’s a good chance in a couple of years it could be Eaye himself, for a while. The Barraggees come and go. Some would consider dealing with the Federation, others would prefer the Klingons…”

“Which would the Duke choose?” As far as Chekov had been able to discern, Eaye actually liked neither of the available options.

“He’d rather the universe came to an end where the blue begins,” Kronor said, smiling. “You know that saying? No, you don’t. An old Trask legend said that the world was floating in an endless pool of blue. Not a blue substance, just blueness.”

“Then how did they explain the sun and…”

“Lights shone by their enemies to fool them.”

“That’s paranoid.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s an excuse to go and attack your enemies. Trask are always looking for an excuse.”

“They haven’t seemed very warlike while I’ve been here,” Chekov objected.

“Wrong time of year, that’s all. Now the harvest is all in, it’ll start up again. And I reckon the Empire’s forgotten just how much we scrap. They’re setting up all these stations and projects. No one was talking about that before. The Empire was happy to be here just to stop the Federation being here. But now…”

“They’re going to use this world as a base in the sector.” Chekov was well aware of the implications of everything he’d heard.

“You know that? For sure?”

Chekov nodded.

“Have you told the Duke?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be glad if it does come to a fight with the Klingons. It’ll clear the air.”

“Won’t you…”

“What?”

“Have any mixed feelings about it?”

“Oh, no. I have a wife and two sons. If I have any honour, it belongs to them. And they’re Trask. The Empire can rot, for all I care. How do you enjoy running errands for the General?”

Chekov swallowed. “Not at all. Why?”

“It just amuses me. Can you guess what Rae was plotting, just before you shot him?”

“Nothing would surprise me.”

“He proposed to me that we should sell information to the Klingons. I think he’d already tried it on his own and fouled it up. He thought I’d give him some credibility. Which shows how little he understood his precious Klingons.”

“Oh.” Maybe this explained why Drak assumed, from no evidence Chekov knew of, that he’d be willing to betray the Duke. Perhaps Rae had come with a recommendation from someone. Was this all the grounds for Drak’s hints and threats? “When Kress first came here, do you know if he specifically asked for Rae to work for him?”

Kronor shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“So, why didn’t you tell the Duke about this? Rae was dangerous…”

“You saved me the bother. Anyway, I was more insulted than worried. The Duke had no argument with them, Rae didn’t have his ear to the Duke’s lips. But to suggest that I would do that…”

Chekov shrugged. “He would do it. Perhaps he did not have the imagination to realise someone else might not.”

“Maybe. Anyway, there was worse. He knew… well, he was afraid I’d be annoyed. So what does he do, he runs off to the Father and gets himself a penance. He’s walking around unarmed and he presumes on my honour, that I won’t do anything.”

“Would you have?”

“Do you think they’re finished down there?”

Chekov looked over the parapet again. “I’m not sure what they were supposed to be doing but they seem to have stopped. And I must get back to General Kress…”

“I heard Drak found a way for you to make yourself useful.”

“What?” Given Kronor’s lofty contempt for his father’s race it seemed unfair that he’d been gossiping with them.

“Something about a green-eyed female. He found it highly amusing. I gather that Klingon women are… ferocious.”

“If you’ll excuse me…”

“I thought… there are ways Klingons communicate, socially. Ways a female says she’s available and a male says he’s interested, or not interested. Knowing what they are could save you a lot of trouble, if Drak’s going to make a habit of putting you in difficult situations.”

Chekov wished he knew what Kronor was up to. “Thank you, but I needed to know that yesterday.”

“My apologies. I hadn’t allowed for your talent for getting into trouble.” Kronor stood aside to let Chekov past him into the door at the top of the stair that led out onto the battlements. “You know you could have left here anytime. The Duke never put a guard on his comm station. No one would question you if you walked out of the castle alone. You’re not a prisoner.”

“I gave my word.” Chekov held out the communicator again. “I would prefer that you take this.”

“Are you assuming that your ship will do something to rescue you?” Kronor slipped the bulky device into his shirt.

“I’m not assuming anything.”

“Because that would be the worst possible outcome. The Duke would react very strongly.”

“He’s not exactly a supporter of the Federation at the moment.”

“No, I’m not talking about his political reaction. Most of his politics is posturing anyway. I mean, people will get killed. Unless they can take you out with the transporter — but they’d have done that already, if they could, wouldn’t they? They’ll have to come and look for you. I think the Duke’s response, the reaction of any of his men, to an invasion like that, would be extremely… violent.”

Chekov thought for a moment. “What you are saying is that if I don’t use your communicator to tell the Enterprise exactly where I am, so they can beam me out, someone may be killed when they try to rescue me another way?”

Kronor held out the communicator again. “I think in your place I’d take the offer.”

“You’re underestimating Captain Kirk. If he does anything, he’ll be aware of the danger. He’ll take that into account.”

Kronor shrugged and walked away, leaving Chekov to ponder this extra twist to the problem. He couldn’t even, it seemed, just stay here without being in the wrong.

***

In retrospect it was apparent that the atmosphere in the castle had been changing over the past few days. It was cold and wet, which in itself altered routines and behaviour. People scurried from one place to another with oilskins pulled over their heads. Mud replaced dust on the stone floors and the fires burned fiercer and longer. Now would be a good time, Chekov thought miserably, to introduce the Trask to geothermal heating, sealed domestic environments and doors that fit properly into their frames. There was more than that, though: a feeling of watchful readiness. Wherever you looked someone was polishing a gun or laboriously stitching leather.

Chekov stuck his head round the door of the squadroom in response to a message from Diek. The man seemed to be in a state of perpetual panic ever since his commander had asked him to stand in for the invalided Varn.

Diek held out a sheet of paper. When Chekov merely looked baffled by the ill-drawn characters, Diek shook it for emphasis. “This is the watch roster for this tide, but with you and Varn gone, we’re all standing two nights in three. I caught Niga and Tern a… almost asleep last night as it was.”

Chekov accepted the paper reluctantly. The first draft was Rae’s. He recognised the hand, and the name at the head of the sheet. Two names had been erased and arrows drawn to move around the eight names that remained. Although he didn’t know which was which, it was clear that the squad was overstretched.

“What are we watching? Why do we need so many men on duty?”

Diek blew out the aggressive sigh that Chekov knew was reserved for his special brand of ignorance. “It’s autumn, the rains have started. We could get attacked any night. Any day, for that matter.”

“Attacked by whom?”

“The Marquis, the Barraggees…” Diek looked hard at Chekov, as if to hold him responsible if an attack came from that direction. “Anyone. Including the Federation.”

Chekov puzzled over the roster some more. He was, though, only a squad commander. Presumably this exercise in paranoia was the Duke’s prerogative. It wasn’t up to him to question it. “We seem to be on duty every night this half tide…”

“Yes.”

“And as you say, we have to provide manpower for fifty watches over eleven nights…”

“Yes. Two nights out of three. Like I said.”

“Can we bring someone else into the squad, to replace Varn?”

“Only if the Duke gives us someone.” Diek’s tone implied that was a dead end.

“I’ll ask him and see if I can agree a reduction in the number of watches we’re responsible for. And I’ll stand a watch tonight. And another the day after tomorrow. What time does the watch commence?”

“When it wants two twelfths of midnight,” Diek answered, grudgingly grateful. “Where shall I put you?”

Chekov shrugged. “Wherever Rae was. And now, if that’s all, I’m going to have something to eat.” And a quick sleep, he added to himself. It would be no fun trying to second guess Drak tomorrow after a sleepless night.

Liiz had the baby in her arms, suckling quietly, and her supper balanced on the arm of her chair. She nodded at the kitchen. “Can you help yourself? He’s almost finished, and I want him to go to sleep so we can…”

“I’ll look after him if you want to go out for a while,” Chekov offered, ladling soup into a bowl. “I’m going to try and sleep. I’m on watch tonight.”

“Oh.” She didn’t manage to quite conceal the disappointment in her voice.

“Did you want to do something else?” He stood the bowl on the table and turned back to get some bread.

“Oh, no. I can quite see you have to play soldiers. Nothing else is as important as that.”

Tor seemed to pick up the sarcasm in her voice. He wriggled uncomfortably and opened his eyes very wide.

“You stupid baby. Why can’t you go to sleep? You’re driving me mad…”

She pulled her shirt closed and dumped the child in his cot. Tor screamed in protest. Chekov stood staring at the pair of them. He’d never seen Liiz lose her temper with her son before. “What’s the matter?” he asked as gently as he could over the force of Tor’s yells

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“If you wanted to do something else…”

“It’s about my work. My supervisor is here to see the Duke about something. I wanted… I…”

“I’ll look after Tor if you want to talk to him about something.”

“It’s a her. And that isn’t the point. I wanted to…”

“What?” He sat down and began spooning soup.

“Well, Rae never took my work very seriously. He always made things difficult. And that rubbed off on the way people treated me. I thought if you met Professor Ghent…”

Chekov moved his spoon around the bowl thoughtfully. “You want me to pretend to be an interested and supportive spouse?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“I will, on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“You do the same for me.”

“I have!”

He pulled a chunk off the loaf of bread on the table and dipped it into the soup. Liiz pulled a chair out and sat down next to him. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve cooked your meals, made sure you have clean clothes, passed on messages. It’s not me who hasn’t wanted…”

“What was it we said when we got married?”

“Oh, come on…”

“I don’t remember anything about cooking meals and washing shirts. Didn’t you promise something about bodies and blood and souls?”

“That all sounds very well and romantic…”

“It sounds to me as if we’re supposed to care for each other, not provide a housekeeping service.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I’ll do it. If it will make you happy. I don’t want to upset you. But…”

“But what?” she prompted.

“Things like Varn…”

“That’s over.”

“What?” This wasn’t what he wanted to hear at all. An unfaithful wife had to be given much less weight in the general scheme of things. He still wanted that comfortable charade.

“We both decided it wasn’t fair. I ought to give you a chance.”

“Oh, Liiz.”

“You’d rather I was deceiving you, wouldn’t you?”

Chekov realised that he was on the verge of telling her about Madeek. He stopped himself. The doctor hadn’t, when they’d parted, seemed particularly anxious to see him again. The incident was better forgotten. If he could.

“I suppose if you don’t take being married seriously, I don’t feel I have to.”

“I hadn’t noticed you were taking it seriously. Or was going with that Klingon bitch just a momentary lapse?” She waited for something, presumably a denial. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about it? Or didn’t you care?” Again, he didn’t say anything despite her questioning silence. “Rae said she was beautiful. Is that true?” After a moment, she swept his bowl off the table with her hand so that it crashed to the floor, smashing and splashing food across the tiles. “Answer me!”

“Liiz…”

“Well, I’m not deceiving you. I’m not going to let you do whatever you like and blame me. It’s your bloody fault. This whole wretched situation is your fault, not mine. You killed Rae. You did. Not me. You killed him and you can live with the consequences.”

Chekov got out of his chair and began collecting the scattered fragments of earthenware.

“Let me do that!” It was as if she wanted him to lose his temper. She pushed him out of her way with unnecessary force and snatched at the remaining shards.

He sat back on his heels, wishing he had a little more experience to guide him. “I have an hour now, if you want to…”

“No, I don’t want to. It would be a little dishonest to pretend you were ever going to be interested in what I do, wouldn’t it?” She dropped the debris into the stone sink, picked up a cloth and began to mop up the soup, cursing under her breath. “Your mother can look after him.” The cloth was flung down again. Tor was still wailing unhappily, frightened by the angry voices. Liiz picked him up again, along with his blanket and a rag doll who bore a worrying resemblance to Commander Drak. Someone had painstakingly tucked the tan fabric of the brow into convincing Klingon ridges.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chekov said as she opened the door, still trying to be reasonable, despite the way his emotions were churning. 

“And the next day, and the next day, for the rest of your life, Pavel.”

Chekov told himself that what had happened with Madeek wasn’t his fault and wasn’t Liiz’s business. He told himself to forget about it, cleared the rest of his supper off the table and lay down on the bed to try to sleep. Within five minutes he’d fallen into a vivid nightmare in which his squad was being picked off, one by one, by a landing party of guards from the Enterprise. He was screaming at the Starfleet men to put their phasers on stun but they wouldn’t listen. Meanwhile Diek and the rest were pleading with him to do something to get them out of this mess. Sam, covered in blood, kept saying, “We trusted you.” In the end, Chekov had seized a Klingon disruptor and brought down every one of the Security guards, most of whom, illogically, had the faces of the bridge crew. He woke sweating and trembling, not sure that he hadn’t been screaming aloud. He forced himself to close his eyes again but was too overwrought to sleep. If he didn’t think about Kronor’s warning, his mind wandered to the prospect of encountering Madeek again. If he banished that idea, a shutter flapping at the window sounded like the lash on Varn’s back, or his own.

After a few more moments he gave up. He investigated the kitchen before he left. Without a little sleep now it was going to be a very long night. Maybe something to eat would help. He sliced himself off two substantial wedges of the fruit filled bread and headed back down to the squad room.


	11. Chapter 11

As Chekov opened the door of the squad room, the murmur of voices inside fell to nothing. It had been suspiciously quiet anyway. Men picked things up and made a pretence of being busy. Only Diek met Chekov’s eyes.

Well, what did he expect? Chekov asked himself. It would be a miracle if they never talked about him behind him back. He didn’t know his job, he had no patience with their obviously time honoured way of doing things, and his actions, or Rae’s, but it seemed to come to one and the same thing, had led to their clearly popular leader being beaten and invalided out. Presumably none of them had been responsible for reporting his attack on Varn but they’d be aware of it. And of its potentially appalling consequences for his second.

He noted what people were doing. Those who were on duty this evening were changing into heavy leather jackets and padded trousers: proper combat gear. Tonight he’d no longer be training, or one remove from warfare on someone’s staff. He’d be on watch. If the castle was attacked, he would have to fight, both to defend the Duke and simply to stay alive. Presumably somewhere Rae had kept his own battle dress. “Diek, where did Rae…”

The man pointed silently to a locker. Hanging on the open door was all the necessary gear. Someone had thought of it for him.

When Sam came into the room, Chekov had all but finished lacing and buttoning. He was abruptly reminded of the vehemence of Tess’ warning to him, although he could no more think of any reason why he should want to hurt the youngster now than he’d been able to at the time. With the warning came back the scene in the little room above the inn and Tess’ grey eyes, full of sudden anger.

The young man began picking over his own equipment.

“Sam…”

The same eyes were now full of enthusiasm and something else that Chekov wasn’t used to seeing, something he couldn’t pin down. Chekov took a hard look at the young man. He had the same blond hair as Tess and the same perfect oval face. Chekov had been half-joking when he’d said Sam was nearly as pretty as his sister, but it was true. If he’d been a girl, Chekov thought, he’d have been far prettier. Maybe, God forbid, what the boy was experiencing was hero worship. Given his age and the fact that Chekov, however arbitrarily, was in command…

“We’re on watch together. I thought you might tell me…” He trailed off. Sam’s normal golden colour had faded to something like custard. “Is something wrong?”

“No, sir. I’ll get your cloak, shall I?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Chekov demanded of Diek, who shrugged.

“He’s never liked late watch.”

“He never liked late watch with Rae,” another of the men pointed out. There was an embarrassed silence. The squad, although they dropped comments here and there, seemed to have a taboo about criticising their former commander too openly. Chekov didn’t push it.

Sam returned with one of the heavy, three quarter length cloaks that hung in the anteroom to the officers’ mess. He looked a little more composed now. Having delivered the cloak he turned back wordlessly to his own kit. Chekov pulled the thing loosely over his shoulders, wrinkling his nose at the oily smell of the garment. It seemed ridiculously heavy for an early autumn evening but the sky had cleared and the stars were already frostily brilliant. He might be glad of it. Sam just slipped on his leather jerkin and wound a scrap of fabric round his neck for a scarf. Chekov looked at him and wondered if the boy didn’t have a cloak of his own. True, his shirt was thicker than Chekov’s and the sleeveless leather jacket was thick and cut high round the neck, but still… Then he remembered that teenage boys hated to be fussed over what they wore. He recalled his own resentment at being scolded by his mother for coming home in the rain with his coat still wadded up in the bottom of his school bag. And Sam had been on night watch before. He’d know what to expect.

“Come on then.”

Sam came up with a forced smile. Chekov found it hard to get a word out of him as they made their way up to the watchtower. That high up and exposed, a stiff breeze greeted them.

“If you were attacking the castle, which approach would you choose?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Haven’t you ever thought about it?” Chekov was surprised. He would have had the best lines of attack well mapped out in his mind and Sam hadn’t struck him as passively content to simply do as he was told without using his head. “You must have some ideas.”

The boy shuffled his feet uneasily. Chekov turned away from him and paced round the parapet of the tower, glancing down at the river cliff on one side and into the black wells of the castle courtyards on the other. He shivered despite his cloak. He couldn’t recall having done anything to alarm Sam, not since their early conversation in the squad room. He’d hardly seen him since pay-day and the boy had been friendly enough then.

“I wouldn’t come from this side at all,” Sam gave in and admitted eventually. “You can climb the cliff easy and bring a boat up to it too, and even get into the castle, if you used industrial phasers to enlarge a window, but… but that’s what makes it so stupid, isn’t it? I mean, if someone wanted to really attack us we couldn’t stop them any more. Not like this. It’s just a game now. It doesn’t mean anything any longer. The Klingons don’t even want us to fight.”

Chekov was most disconcerted to hear Sam voice the same doubts that had been troubling him.

“And anyway, if they did, they know we’d see them coming and pick them off,” Sam continued. “From any of the towers on this side. You used to have to watch from here because there were trees that gave cover in that gully but they fell into the river a few years back.”

“If you’d told me this before we came on duty, I could have brought a pack of cards.”

“Cards?”

It was so dark now that he could hardly see Sam’s face. “Pieces of card in numbered sets. We use them for gambling or just to pass the time.”

“Oh.”

“It can be hard to stay awake when you’re doing something that isn’t really necessary.”

“Yes.”

“What about the other towers? Is there anything they should be looking out for?”

“I don’t know. I never got rostered on the other towers. Rae always put me up here.”

“Oh.” Sam obviously did not inspire confidence in his erstwhile commander. As little respect as Chekov had by now for Rae, he couldn’t help wondering why. “So what did you do to pass the time?”

“Well, we didn’t play chances.”

The conversation unravelled into silence again. Chekov made an unnecessary expedition around the five corners of the tower and sighted along the walls in either direction. He watched the moon rise over the hills on the far side of the river before he came back to his companion. As he pulled his hands inside his cloak to warm them he encountered the two slices of cake that he’d brought with him to see him through the night.

“Are you hungry?”

It was probably stupid to eat them now but he felt a strong need to cheer Sam up. The idea worked. Sam sat down on the low cover over the hatch that gave access to the roof and wolfed the cake down as if he hadn’t been fed for a month.

Chekov ate his own share at a more respectable, adult pace. When he stood up to brush off the crumbs he realised the wind had strengthened. There was a wet sting of rain in it. Clouds were beginning to fly like streamers, blacking out and revealing one constellation after another.

“Look, you’d better share my cloak.”

Sam turned to look at him and the moon caught his face. “Do I have to?”

“You’ll freeze…”

“Yes, sir.” His eyes looked enormous and some trick of the moonlight had filled them with the illusion of tears. He slid off the lead roof and padded round the hatch to where Chekov stood. “I thought you weren’t like Rae,” he whispered, then shut his eyes and started to unbutton his jacket.

Chekov stood there puzzled for a moment, until Sam began to fumble with cold fingers to unfasten his belt. The ensign took a deep breath and an abrupt step backwards. “Sam, I think you misunderstood me…”

“Don’t you want to? I mean… Rae always rostered us here so he could…”

“No, I don’t want to! It never occurred to me…” The ensign pulled his cloak off and threw it over Sam’s shoulders as well as he could without touching the child. “I just thought you looked cold. For God’s sake!”

Sam wrapped the black cape round himself. “Now you’ll get cold,” he pointed out from inside what look like a cloak of darkness.

“I’ll be all right,” Chekov snapped. The wind was slicing through the sleeves of his shirt. “Why in God’s name didn’t you tell someone what he was doing to you?”

“He’d have killed me.”

“No, he…” Chekov stopped himself. There was no point telling Sam now that he could have halted whatever Rae was doing with a word to the Duke, or anyone. At least on earth he could have. For all Chekov knew, demanding sexual favours from your subordinates was par for the course here. It was, after all, only what Drak had done to him at one remove. But no, he didn’t believe it. This place wasn’t that bad. “Tess knew?”

“I told her after… after Rae died. I think she might have guessed before then.”

“Your parents…”

“I’ve only got Tess.”

Chekov let the wind snatch a half thought out speech on human rights and sexual dignity from his lips. There was nothing to be gained by saying anything that belittled what appeared to be the girl’s chosen profession and he couldn’t trust himself to step delicately around it. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself and give in to a fit of shivering.

“Next time, I mean if anyone ever tries to do that to you again, tell me, or someone like Varn… You must stand up for yourself. People like Rae…”

“Like you?”

“What?”

“Stand up for myself like you do?”

Chekov wasn’t sure how to respond. Sam had a point.

“Sam, if it looks as if… This is your world, and you have a right to decide how you’ll live here. I don’t. It’s not my world, and I believe the only right thing for me to do is to try to fit in. If that means working with the Klingons and turning a blind eye to Liiz… well that’s just something I have to live with.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not doing it because I’m frightened, although I am sometimes. I’m doing it because it’s the best I can do.”

“Well, I tried. I tried to make excuses to get out of watches with him and he just laid into me when he did get me up here. And no one else seemed to understand… I was scared of him. You don’t understand. You never met him. He really was frightening.”

“Even so…”

“Yes?”

Chekov relived the long moment when he’d been alone with Madeek and the talking had stopped. He’d been, he had to admit, too frightened to object. He’d made an instant decision that he’d rather go through with whatever she had in mind than protest and face the uncertain consequences, alone on a Klingon cruiser.

And he’d let Kirk order him to do something he knew was a mistake. Or he wouldn’t be here at all. Only that was different. That was the calculated risk of military service.

And he’d stood there and let Drak carve the skin on his arms into ribbons. Was that a rational choice or the passivity of the thoroughly cowed?

Perhaps he wasn’t the person to criticise Sam for being too submissive. “It’s all right. I do understand.”

He shut his eyes against the stinging of the wind.

“You’ll freeze,” Sam said hesitantly. “This cloak really is big enough for both of us.”

The only thing you could say for the weather was that the wind dried you as fast as the thin drizzle doused you. Chekov felt Sam put the cloak back round him. He pulled the boy inside and wrapped it shut against the cold. Sam leaned against him, still tense. They were both shivering.

“Do you know the names of the constellations?” Chekov said after a long moment. “That star there, the bright one at the North end of that line of four, that’s Pyris…” The ensign filled the long night with adventures from all the different worlds he’d visited, until one more alien sun rose over him and Sam had fallen soundly asleep.

***

Kress seemed to have lost patience with the idiosyncrasies of the Trask. When the General arrived late in the morning of the ninth day to be informed that Neevas was currently the scene of a pitched battle between two tribes who had been trading peaceably across the river estuary all summer, he ordered troops in to quell the unrest.

Chekov made sure he was occupied while this was happening, afraid his face would show his delight. This was the sort of heavy handedness that must rouse the Trask to rethink their preference for the Empire. Kress seemed to have forgotten he was there, quietly inputting intelligence reports into the computer and drafting briefing documents for Kress himself and his various officers.

“Not yet… sir,” Drak interrupted, before the order could be transmitted to whatever ship in orbit was poised to pour Klingon warriors onto the planet.

Chekov’s heart sank. And Kress didn’t even seem embarrassed by Drak’s insubordination. The ensign had a feeling that whatever power game was hidden beneath the surface here would very soon be out in the open for all to see.

“You were pleased?” Drak said unexpectedly in his ear. “You wanted the occupying army to go in and show its teeth?”

“If you’d subdued both tribes, the Duke would be in a relatively stronger position,” Chekov improvised.

“But his absolute strength would remain negligible. Don’t tie your fortunes to Eaye, Lieutenant. You future lies with us. And in the meantime, if they clear each other out of the way, it spares us the trouble.”

Chekov nodded dutifully. “When do you intend to commence construction?”

“As soon as the Enterprise has gone. Just on the off-chance that anyone is alert enough to realise our intentions and raise objections. Yes, once Kirk abandons this little flock to the jackals, your prospects will really take off.”

Drak picked a printout off his desk at random. “This annual scuffle for supremacy, when will the Duke join in?”

“I don’t know.”

“But in earlier years, has he been one of the first into the field, or does he allow his enemies to exhaust themselves on each other before he enters the fight?”

Chekov swallowed. After so many days of bluff and downright untruth, he still found it difficult to cope with Drak’s questions. “The Duke has an excellent sense of timing.”

“Ah, Lieutenant, you’re privy to his plans, and you don’t wish to pass them on…”

“What does it matter to you? He intends to fight. It is traditional. He has no quarrel with you unless you try to stop him.”

“Look, Pavel. You have to make up your mind soon whose side you’re on. There is no point trying to salve your conscience by remaining a little loyal to the Duke. Nor trying to placate me with a little loyalty to the Empire. Either you are my man, or you are not. Which is it?”

“I have to consider my wife and son…” Chekov threw in, as a believable excuse for his wavering.

“Yes?” Drak responded, plainly disbelieving anything that Chekov said on that subject. “If you’re concerned, they will be evacuated from here whenever you wish. You have only to give the word.”

Oh, that would be priceless, Chekov thought. Liiz would at least have to admit he was right about the Klingons when she found herself claiming sanctuary among them while they pillaged her home. Maybe she and Madeek would be friends.

“So, Lieutenant, Empire or Duchy? You know, I heard you were ambitious… you’re not just trying to push up your price, are you?”

“No, Commander. I’m… I’m loyal to the Empire.”

“Excellent.” Drak smiled his vaguely threatening smile and turned back to whatever task he was nominally carrying out for General Kress.

Chekov finished what he was doing and tidied his desk. It was near enough to midday. “Permission to leave, sir?”

“Dismissed.”

It was still raining. Chekov went in via the squadroom, guiltily aware that he’d meant to check on how Diek was coping with his responsibilities, and find out when Varn would be fit for duty again. And make sure Sam was okay…

As if called up by the thought, Sam was alone in the squadroom, polishing boots. Sometime during the morning he’d had his hair cut. It was now as severely short as Chekov’s, and a shade darker than before, the roots too new to be bleached by the summer sun. He smiled, an embarrassed, almost shame-faced smile. But he wasn’t frightened, as he had been every other time they’d been alone together. “Hello, sir.”

“Good morning, Sam. No lessons today?”

The boy shook his head, surprised. “No. I’m finished with school. I’m just a soldier now.”

“Oh. Congratulations. Does everyone have to fight? I mean, is it compulsory..?”

“Seventy tides,” Sam informed him cheerfully, presumably stating the term of conscripted military service.

Chekov thought about how old Sam was and the effect of taking everyone who should be in full time education, learning skills and trades, and having them spend five years firing arrows at each other.

“Girls too?”

Sam stared at him. “Girls? No… Oh, some people do, I suppose. If they’re short of numbers, but girls mostly stay at school, or… do whatever girls do. You know.”

Chekov wasn’t sure he did. Get married maybe. Drak could be right, that the habit of marrying early kept the Trask tied firmly to their present way of life.

“And what will you do afterwards?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Be a blacksmith, probably, like my father.”

Chekov didn’t like to point out that with the Klingons moving in, blacksmiths might quickly become a thing of the past. “You could study. Learn to do something new…” He tried to put a positive slant on it.

Sam didn’t look very interested. “Why should I?”

“Well, there might not be any need for blacksmiths, or…” Or maybe if you were going to spend the next five years fighting bush wars, it simply wasn’t realistic to plan ahead. “Sam, what percentage of casualties do you normally suffer over a winter of fighting?”

Sam looked puzzled and Chekov suddenly realised that he hadn’t seen any obviously disabled veterans around the place. That would be expected if the Trask had fought with phasers or other disintegration weapons but arrows and bullets were less tidy. “How many people get injured or killed when you fight?”

“Oh, thousands. And we take prisoners too and execute them.”

“No you don’t, Sam. I’ve spoken to Xeris. He’s never executed anyone.”

“Well, we could do.”

“The Klingons will. They won’t fight your comfortable little wars. They will simply kill you.”

“Really?” Sam had dropped some of his bravado.

“Well, you could say that I would prefer not to be here after the Federation withdraws, because I suspect it is not going to be a pleasant place to be.”

“You don’t want to be here anyway,” Sam pointed out.

“But it’s going to get worse.”

“I don’t understand. I know Liiz is…”

“A witch.”

“Well, so people say,” Sam admitted frankly. Chekov smiled to himself. He’d thought that Tess was using a figure of speech. It seemed she was being merely literal. “But you’re an officer. And you’re good at it. Not like…”

“But I don’t enjoy being an officer for the sake of it. I don’t really care about the Duke. I’m not sure I understand what everyone else on this planet thinks they’re doing.”

“Well, you’re in with the Klingons, so if they do defeat the Duke in battle, you’ll be okay. And if they don’t, you’ll get Em’s tenancy. I don’t know what else you want.” Sam sounded like an exasperated parent bribing a difficult child to behave itself. “I can’t see why you mind being here. What was so great about wherever you were before?”

“It was where I belonged. How would you feel if… Oh, I don’t know. You were kidnapped by the Barraggees? And told you could never see Tess again and you had to…”

“But the Barraggees are weird and Tess and I have only got each other, I told you.” The boy’s voice broke up. Chekov realised that he’d trodden on some other fragile aspect of Sam’s past.

“Okay, okay. It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen.”

Sam dipped his piece of rag into a jar of grease and took out his feelings on the toe of a riding boot. “Do you really mind being here that much?”

Chekov nodded. It seemed an admission of weakness, but he didn’t care. “Yes. I want to go home.”

“I… I can’t do anything about that.”

“I’m not asking you to, Sam.”

The boy looked unconvinced. He gazed at Chekov dismally.

Chekov decided it was time to change the subject. “I wanted to see Diek…”

“I’ll find him.” Sam dropped the boot and darted out of the room, either pleased to have an excuse to go or just his normal helpful self.

Chekov sat down on a bench and watched the rain lashing at the windows. There was something pleasant about being inside when the weather outside was so awful. The same way being here in the squadroom was so much better than being with Kress. It was all relative.

“Commander?” Diek’s fingers were covered with ink, as if he’d been struggling with a piece of writing and losing. “The Duke’s given us an extra man but I still can’t stretch the roster. The trouble is, he wants the Klingons watched too…”

“Then drop the two men on the watch I had with Sam. You don’t need anyone up there.”

“But we always…”

“How would you get into the castle that way?”

“You couldn’t,” Diek admitted uncertainly.

“Then you can put them somewhere else. And I don’t want Sam on night watch for the moment.”

“Why not? If he gets off it, everyone will start complaining.”

“So?”

“It’s all right for you. You don’t have to justify it to them. It’s your order, but I’ll get the stick.”

“Precisely, it is my order. Why is there a problem? I found you an extra man, you can use Sam during the day…”

“I just can’t sort it out.” Diek pulled a crumpled wad of paper from inside his jacket and spread the sheets out on the bench next to Chekov. “I keep having people on duty four shifts running, or forgetting that someone has to exercise the horses.”

It looked to Chekov as if half the problem was the idiosyncratic way Trask writing started at the bottom of the page and worked upwards. Liiz had been astonished by his reaction to this. As far as she was concerned, it was as logical as filling a cup from the bottom first.

“What watches are we responsible for?” Chekov plucked the pen from Diek’s fingers and made a few experimental strokes with it on the paper.

Diek listed them. Chekov picked out the pictograms on the old rosters and transferred them to a fresh sheet.

“What’s this, last tide’s roster?” It was relatively unaltered, and in Rae’s hand only.

“Yes. See, Rae should have been on duty there, with Sam, but you killed him.” Diek jabbed his finger at the day Chekov had arrived.

“How inconsiderate of me.”

“What?”

“Nothing… So which watch is this?”

“Tower four, that’s three, and two, and the main gate, and the treasury…

“Hold on, I haven’t got this clear in my head. Sam said he was on tower four that morning…”

“No, he wasn’t. He wouldn’t have had watch duty morning and night. Not then.”

“Is this what should have happened, or what did happen?”

“The watch commander signs any alterations, if someone is sick, or swaps duty. Uden signed it… there. So there were no changes.”

Chekov looked through the roster again, tracing the people he knew. If the Duke had been involved in the ambush, presumably he’d have been prepared, he’d have had more men on alert. Had someone actually gone to the trouble of faking this roster in case Chekov should look at it? That morning, according to the roster, neither Sam, nor Kronor, nor, of course, Rae Em’s son, had been on duty. Varn had been on the tower overlooking the ambush, along with Diek. He tracked down the rest of his squad. If he asked his men, would others, as Sam had, unknowingly let on that the Duke was covering up for something? But then, what did Eaye have to fear? What did it matter what Chekov knew, or suspected?

“Yes, I see how it works.” He finished listing the watches, fitted Sam into the daytime slots, volunteered himself for one night in three and handed it back to Diek. “Write in everything else that someone has to do at the same time as each watch is happening, then just fit people in. You should have no trouble.”

Diek looked at it and thoughtfully sucked the nib of the pen, colouring his lips a purplish-blue in the process. “You mean put me here, and here, and here, and then, say, Farez…”

“That’s right. Put everyone in for the maximum number of watches they can sensibly take. Then use whoever is left over to give everyone else a day off, or something. And if you use one column for each member of the squad — that’s it — you can easily see if you’ve used someone too often, and who’s available if you need them.”

The squad’s temporary commander knelt down on the floor and laboriously began filling in all the spaces in the roster, using the bench as a desk. Chekov watched over his shoulder. So much for the non-interference directive, he thought idly. I’ve just taken personnel management in this squad out of the dark ages.

He looked out of the window, up into the sky. The rain had stopped and a tiny sliver of blue mocked him. So far away…

“Why can’t Sam do night watches anyway?” Diek complained, his pen hovering over a shift that was proving difficult to fill.

“Because…” Chekov closed his eyes. How much more simple it was than he’d realised. Of course the Duke wasn’t engaged in an elaborate cover up. Sam was lying. Chekov had asked him where he was at the time of Rae’s death and he’d lied. The lie was easily discovered, implying that he’d panicked. And why should he panic? “Because he’s frightened.”

“Frightened of what? The dark?”

“Excuse me. I have to go.”

“Do you want to see this when I’ve finished it?”

Chekov looked at the roster. “I don’t know… I’m not sure if I’m going to be here.”

***

Liiz was making biscuits. She had the baby slung in a scarf across her breast and was singing cheerfully. Tor was laughing. Every so often he reached out and patted at her arms. The two of them were covered in a fine layer of flour and the apartment smelt of spice and baking.

“Liiz…”

“Yes?” She stopped what she was doing and clapped her hands together. A small cloud of flour mushroomed into the air and Tor chortled with pleasure. “What is it?”

“I didn’t kill Rae.”

“Oh, Gods, Pavel…” Her smile vanished and left behind a look of sheer terror.

“But I don’t think I can tell the Duke who did.”

She sat down on the settle, looking as if she’d stopped in mid-breath and didn’t dare let it out. “I don’t understand.”

“Rae was… I’m sorry, Liiz, but I think Rae was abusing Sam, Tess’s brother. When they were on watch together.”

Liiz lifted Tor from the sling into her arms and hid her face by giving the child a kiss. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean…” Chekov hesitated, unsure whether she didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand. “Rae was having sex with Sam, while they were alone on watch together.” He waited for her to deny this, to object.

“So?” she said dully. “I don’t see what difference that makes to you.”

“I asked Sam something about the morning when Rae died and he lied to me about where he was at the time. You can understand why that made me suspicious.”

“Yes, of course.” Some of the colour was coming back into her face. “It looks as if Sam might have killed Rae. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him…”

“You know I don’t want to stay here, but…”

“If you tell the Duke, you’re worried about what will happen to Sam?”

Chekov nodded. “What happened to his parents?”

“His father was killed… about a hundred tides ago. A piece of metal splintered, stabbed him right through the eye.”

“And his mother?”

“She died before that. I don’t know details.”

“If I tell the Duke…” he began.

“You only have suspicions, Pavel.”

“If there’s even any doubt that I killed Rae… It’s not as if I was trying to kill him. I wasn’t aiming to kill. Sam might have been responsible. He’s frightened of what I might do, and so is Tess…”

“It’s what you want to believe. Maybe it’s true, but you’ve admitted you fired at Rae. You’ll be bringing it all out into the open, hurting Sam, and Tess…”

“She knows, I’m sure of that.”

“…and it may not even make any difference for you. And if the Duke does accept it, what will happen to Sam then? And…”

“And what?”

“What you’ve told me, I can believe it, but I don’t want Tor to know that about his father. And you might find Sam will call you a liar, and Tess. It will be your story or theirs. Trask might prefer to believe Trask. The Federation has lied to us. They said they’d help us, and then they did so little. It’s bound to be held against you.” She sounded as panic-stricken as Sam had presumably been when Chekov had asked that first, innocent question. All her arguments were tumbling out in no particular order.

“Are you saying you’ll call me a liar too?”

She was silent for an uncomfortably long time. “No. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“But you think it’s acceptable for me to have to stay here when I wasn’t responsible for Rae’s death?”

“I will do everything I can to make you happy here.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I think I did. I think all the misery you’re going to cause by stirring this up will… will outweigh what you’re suffering.”

He thought about it, about getting away from here, leaving them all to sort out the mess themselves. There was no reason he should protect Sam. He should let the local law take its course. But he couldn’t. “Rae didn’t have a single redeeming feature, did he?”

Liiz surprised him by bursting into tears.


	12. Chapter 12

Over the next couple of days, the pace of Klingon involvement on Trask seemed to accelerate abruptly. As the last few Federation personnel withdrew, Imperial officials replaced them to monitor the running of the various facilities. And in other provinces, newly negotiated cease fires and treaties required policing and arbitrating. Only Eaye and his neighbours stood aloof from the Northern Alliance and its eagerness to bring Klingons into every aspect of local government.

The Duke appeared in Kress’ office from time to time, always arguing with the General, polite but implacable. This afternoon, he bothered to acknowledge his place man for once.

“Is Pavel as unsatisfactory as ever?”

“He is at least beginning to understand the need to do as he’s told. I hear a rumour that…”

“Yes?” Eaye cocked his head on one side and waited to hear what gossip had percolated through to the Klingon camp. Chekov forced himself to breathe steadily.

“That you intend to have him whipped some time in the near future. For striking one of the men under his command.”

“Is that a problem? I’ve already made perfectly clear to him that he can’t expect to go on the sick list afterwards. He’s taking it in instalments for that reason.”

“Duke, a Klingon officer would be negligent if he didn’t beat his men occasionally.”

“There’s a difference between proper discipline and losing your temper,” the Duke snapped. “As I’m sure you appreciate, General.”

Kress looked puzzled by this distinction but he continued smoothly over it. “When, why and how severely you beat him are your business, Duke. What concerns me is the honesty of your bookmakers. They seem to be offering ridiculously long odds on his ability to keep his mouth shut while you do it. If his own comrades think he’s going to scream like an animal the moment you lay leather to him, I want to know what he’s doing in my office.”

“I thought Commander Drak had already carried out his own research in that area,” the Duke retaliated. “Let me assure you, I’ve ten ducals laid that he won’t cry out at all. It’s only six lashes.”

“Then why is that jailer of yours quoting nine to one? You’re obviously the only one wasting your money on him.”

The Duke glanced at Chekov and smiled grimly at his stricken face. “Where would you put your money? Is the General passing up a chance to get rich at Xeris’ expense?”

Chekov just looked at him. After a moment, he realised the Duke was actually waiting for an answer. “I don’t know. I’ve never been beaten.”

“Oh, Trask. That’s another ten ducals you’ve cost me. He’ll scream, General. They always do the first time.” Eaye nodded and strode out of the office.

Kress went immediately back to his work but eventually he glanced up at Chekov, who’d buried himself in a report to hide his churning anger. “If I’d raised a son to manhood and never taught him how to master pain, I would be without honour. Was your mother a widow? Hadn’t your father any brothers to teach you to be a man?”

The General’s tone was scornful but when he walked over to Chekov and pulled him to his feet, his manner was almost apologetic. “It’s time you learned.”

“Learned what?”

“If I had uttered so much as a sigh when I was beaten, from the moment I was taken from my mother’s breast and raised among men, my father would have slit my throat.”

Chekov began to swallow then thought better of it. He stared Kress out defiantly.

“Take your jacket and shirt off, and your belt.”

The ensign concentrated on hating the Duke, and Xeris, and most of all Kress, as he obeyed. The General took his belt from him as he finished unthreading it from the loops at his waist.

“Turn your back to me.”

He did, feeling his knees shake uncertainly.

“I see you have warrior marks. Did you whimper when your friends cut those for you?”

“Commander…” He stopped to bring his voice under control. “Commander Drak cut them.”

“Ah, then you didn’t. But that’s slow pain. Not like this.”

Chekov thought Kress would hit him then, but nothing happened.

“How many lashes did the Duke say? Six?”

“Six. At the next two drummings.”

The force of the blow staggered him forward a couple of steps and he heard himself inhale sharply, even though he knew Kress wasn’t hitting him nearly as hard as Varn had been beaten at the drumming.

“This time, stand still and don’t make a sound. I shall keep beating you until you can take it quietly, and since it will get worse…”

Kress was right about that, but the second blow was also anticipated. The ensign knew exactly what it would feel like. This time he managed to bear it, and the four that followed, in silence.

***

The moment the ensign was dismissed, emerging into the courtyard amid lengthening shadows and a fine mist of rain, he went to look for Xeris. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, or even why he had to say anything. The jailer was filling lamps with oil outside the cell where Chekov and Kirk had been confined. The door of the cell was open and the straw had been raked out. Chekov could dimly make out boxes piled high inside, as if the dungeon was normally used as a store.

“Commander,” Xeris said, putting down his bottle of oil and setting a brimming lamp carefully on the ground beside it before picking up another.

“Nine to one?”

“It’s no comment on your courage, Commander. I don’t know anything much about that… I know you talk like a hero, but so does any place man. Your squad aren’t betting on you. They aren’t betting against you either. But they aren’t betting on you.”

“Varn didn’t cry out.”

“Now you haven’t ever been in combat with them, so they don’t know anything, but they would know how many scars you have on your back. None, I’d say. Am I right?”

Chekov didn’t reply.

“While Varn, or any full-grown Trask male, doesn’t feel a whipping any more than a horse would. Their mothers beat them, their fathers beat them and then their teachers take over.”

“I think you should reduce the odds. Particularly if you’re taking bets from Kress.”

“Oh. He’s giving you lessons in keeping your mouth shut, is he? Well, it’s about time you learned, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

“I hope you’re a rich man, Xeris, because I intend to make you a lot poorer at the next drumming.”

The gaoler shrugged. “Look, Pavel, Em’s son. I run a book because I have seven children and the Duke doesn’t take enough prisoners to keep them in shoes. If you keep silent, I’m pleased for you. No one much is betting either way. I lengthened the odds to try and rouse some interest, that was all. No one likes to see a man under the lash. Even if they can’t understand why you’re there. You should let Varn take it. It’s what you pay him for…”

“Pay him?”

“Blood money.”

Chekov wasn’t sure what to make of this commercial slant on Trask penal policy. “So what do I owe him from the last drumming?”

Xeris looked exasperated. “You don’t owe him anything. The Duke would have given Rae a half hundred lashes, not five and twenty. And Rae would have stood by and smiled that cold bastard smile of his. It’s just one more debt he won’t be paying.”

***

The eleventh day dawned bright. Eventually Chekov gave up battling with his inability to sleep and got out of bed. He had, he guessed, until midday to make up his mind.

He could stay here and be a stooge for the Klingons. Raise children with Liiz, die an early death in some tribal spat… He thought of the naively cheerful picture Sam had tried to paint for him of the life he was contemplating. “I can’t see why you mind being here…” the cadet’s voice echoed in his ears. If Sam could still think this was a good place to be…

He could plead with Eaye one more time, but there was no more reason now to believe the Duke would bend than there had been before.

If he could only contact the Enterprise, Kirk, he was sure, would order him to return to the ship. Hence it would no longer be his moral dilemma. Or his job to worry about what impression he left behind of the Federation…

He pulled his boots on, laced up his jacket and opened the door quietly, while Liiz slept on. Finding himself by Em’s window seat, with nowhere to go and no certainty that he was doing the right thing, he sat on the cold stone sill and looked out at the muddy torrent of the river, two hundred feet below where the castle perched on the cliff it had carved.

And of course, the Enterprise might have left early, if all her business was completed. If they’d done all they thought they could to recover him or given him up for dead. Presumably someone in Kress’ office could discover that for him. Maybe Taleek was already at his console. Maybe the Klingon wouldn’t wonder why a Trask needed to know where the Enterprise was.

No, he would ask Kronor for the communicator. The price for that would be a small swallowing of pride. He could tell himself he was just letting them know that he was alive, and, for the moment, safe. His family deserved to know that much, rather than that he’d suffered whatever fate Eaye had left Kirk imagining. If he’d learned anything in the last few days, it was that the Trask liked to pretend to be considerably more bloodthirsty than they really were. And then it would be in Kirk’s hands. He could put right the damage. He could do anything…

“Pavel?”

He looked up the half turn of stairs to see Liiz scowling down at him, eyes heavy with tiredness. “It’s not fair. Tor woke me up half a dozen times last night, and now you…”

“I’m sorry.”

She came and sat next to him, her broad hips taking up most of the sill. “What’s wrong? I mean, what’s any more wrong than it was yesterday?”

“Nothing.”

“Ahem.” One of Eaye’s squad commanders, Uden, had stopped dead on the stairs. A couple of his men were visible in the darkness of the stairwell behind him.

“The Duke wants you.”

Chekov started to stand up and staggered slightly. The cold had eaten through to his muscles and taken all the strength out of him. Uden put out a hand to steady him then pressed close into the central pillar so that Chekov could precede him down the spiral stairs.

Uden’s two men went first. Chekov hesitated. “Am I under arrest?”

“The Duke wants to see you. That’s all.”

’He knows by now I’ll be close to desperate. I’ve left it too late. He wants to lock me up until he knows the Enterprise is safely gone. I’m going to have to make a break for it…’ Chekov followed in his escort’s footsteps, Uden’s breath warm on the back of his neck.

Eaye was waiting for him outside the great hall. He pulled Chekov into an alcove. “I’ve been speaking to Sam, the cadet in your squad.”

Chekov’s escape strategy was driven out of mind by the frightening thought that if Sam could accuse one commander…

“He came to tell me that he killed Rae.”

Chekov froze.

“So, Ensign. As soon as we can contact your ship, you can go.”

“What will happen to him?”

“What does that matter to you? You’re not going to — Trask forbid — interfere, are you?”

The Duke turned away as if Chekov was no longer his concern, as, the ensign reflected, was indeed the case. He walked round and planted himself in front of the Duke, noticing that Liiz had followed him downstairs and was watching him anxiously. “What will happen to Sam? It does matter to me. He only told you so I could go.”

The Duke concentrated on lacing up the reinforced leather jacket that signalled, clear as a klaxon, that battle was anticipated. “He murdered an unarmed man. The crime was premeditated and carried out in cold blood.”

“No…”

“I know what Rae did to him but that doesn’t change matters. I will not tolerate revenge killings whatever the provocation. He’ll be tried and sentenced in accordance with the law and I shall be very surprised if he doesn’t die for it.”

“He’s only a child.”

“He’s a soldier.” The Duke turned away again. This time Chekov stayed put. He simply raised his voice. “I killed Rae. Sam wasn’t there. I saw him… too far away to have fired the shot that killed Rae. And he was unarmed. He’s lying because he thinks you’ll let me go. I know I killed Rae. I was barely two hundred metres away with an automatic weapon. It’s inconceivable that I could have missed.”

“So…” The Duke’s voice was quiet. For a moment he stood as if lost in thought. Then he smiled. “Very well then, if that’s what you want. I have some guests. I’ll need you in a moment. Say five minutes.”

Chekov nodded, the perfect officer, everything inside him numb with horror at what was happening. He couldn’t go. Sam, so well intentioned, had taken from him his last chance to leave. Last night, he could have walked out and nothing would have suffered but the reputation of Starfleet on a backwater world. Now Rae had given the Duke a hostage.

“Pavel?” Liiz slipped an arm around his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

The affectionate gesture cut into him like a warm knife through butter. “I want to go home, Liiz. I only want to go home.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Trask, if it isn’t enough that I have to listen to the baby wailing all night.”

Chekov stiffened. She pulled him close. “Oh, don’t. Don’t mind what I say. Cry if you want to…” He did, burying his face in her ringlets while she held him tight in her arms.

“The Duke wants you.” It was Uden again, looking merely impatient through the mist of tears. Maybe, amidst all their contradictions, the Trask allowed their warriors to weep in public. Liiz wiped his eyes with her fingers and kissed him. “Go on, Pavel. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Eaye had taken up a place before the great fire in the hall, magisterial in the dancing orange light. Chekov halted a half dozen paces away from him and stood straight. He’d thrown away his chance to go home. If he had to be a place man of the Duke of Eaye, he’d be the best damned place man the Dukes of Eaye had ever known.

But for now, he was admitted to the Duke’s councils of war, by the looks of it. He spared a glance for the four people who were also gathered so early. Em was seated on a folding stool close to the fire, his hands held out to its heat. The Barraggee whom Chekov had seen in the castle a few days earlier had returned and a tall, stick thin man with elaborately curled white hair and a pale yellow cloak he knew immediately as the Marquis from his briefing aboard the Enterprise. This was the man who, it seemed most likely, had arranged the ambush that had curtailed their last efforts to maintain relations with the Trask. The fourth was a woman, short, stockily built and wearing a sword. Chekov had not seen Trask women carrying arms but she looked businesslike. He didn’t think it was a ceremonial weapon.

“Rae, Em’s son, repeat what you told me about the plans of our allies the Klingons.”

“A moment!” The Marquis stepped forward and examined Chekov. “I don’t know this man. Why should I trust what he tells me?”

“Because he’s an officer in my army, Marquis. Do you need any more reason?”

“Hm. Very well. Proceed.”

Chekov ignored the Marquis and concentrated on the Duke as he repeated the basic message about Drak’s plans for the planet. He couldn’t help but be aware of the woman though. Her nostrils flared contemptuously and she wasn’t bothering to look at him. The Barraggee in contrast kept his already over-smooth face devoid of expression.

“Thank you, Rae. So, my friends, you see that the veiled messages we’ve been receiving, that we should make peace with one another or suffer for it, spring from the ill intentions of our Klingon allies.”

“I don’t understand, Eaye. The Klingons want us to make peace. You object and want us to make an alliance. Where is the difference?” The Marquis turned mockingly to his companions. “Or am I being stupid?”

“Yes,” the woman told him abruptly. “As always. What Eaye wishes to tell us is that we have one last chance to change our minds and ask the Federation to stay. If we four ally our lands and influence, we can outweigh the voices of the Eastern Alliance.”

“The withdrawal’s complete,” Em objected. “How can we ask the Federation anything? We don’t have the ability to contact them.”

“I don’t think they will have gone yet. The half tide has another four twelfths to run.” The Duke sounded calmly confident. Chekov wished he was as sure the Enterprise was still there.

“Why would they dawdle?” the Marquis demanded. “You think they have nothing better to do than stay in orbit and look at a planet that threw them out?”

The Barraggee Elder was looking straight into Chekov’s eyes. “I think they have a reason.”

“All I am suggesting is that we demand a breathing space. We invite the Federation to return for consultation, and we give the Empire an opportunity to explain itself and offer certain guarantees. What do we have to lose?”

“We’ll be at war with the members of the Eastern Alliance…” the Marquis objected.

The woman snorted contempt. “That would make a pleasant change from fighting each other.”

“So, are we agreed?”

“I think it’s unwarranted and a display of weakness. If we want to argue with the Klingons we should do it on the field of battle, not by tugging on the Federation’s skirts.” The Marquis was beginning to dig his heels in.

“Rae, Em’s son, if we attempted to thwart the Klingon plans by setting up a military base in this castle and denying them the freedom of the roads and the river, how long would it take them to trample us into that very river?”

“Using phasers from one of their cruisers in orbit, less than five minutes,” Chekov informed the gathering.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Eaye. This castle has stood for more than sixty generations, against every assault…”

“Of archers and swordsmen. We are not talking about archers and swordsmen, Marquis,” the woman snapped impatiently. “How do you know so much about this, Rae, Em’s son?”

“He’s been working for General Kress, picking up information for me. So, what are we going to do?”

“As you will, Duke, as you will.” The Marquis, out-argued, affected disinterest.

“Elder?”

“We have become — disenchanted with the Klingons of late. We have never had reason to make a brother of one.”

“What are you talking about, Elder?” the woman demanded. “Are we to decide this on the basis of a Barraggee whim?”

The Elder nodded. “How else?”

“Trask grant me patience. You…” She fixed blue, gimlet eyes on Chekov. “Four and a half hundred tides ago, outsiders first came here. To observe us and learn from us, they said. I hope they learned well, because they showed a great talent for observing. They watched famine, plague and all manner of calamities and when we pleaded with them for help, good souls that they were, they worked alongside us as we rebuilt our flooded homes, or nursed our dying, or ground our last seed-corn. And gradually we came to understand that people who could travel beyond the blue must be able to do more… But they hardened their hearts to us and insisted they would not interfere.” She spat the word like a curse. “Then after a half hundred tides the Klingons came. They wanted to trade, to sell us what we couldn’t make for ourselves. In return, they wanted an alliance, the right to be here. Famine? They gave us new grains. Sickness? They had medicine. Disaster? They helped us to build flood barriers, stronger bridges, better roads. They gave us power, information, communication, new technologies and the security from which to use all of this — a future. They lifted us out of chaos and they abided by our agreements. And then, at the start of the last autumn rains, they came to us because the Federation had grown stronger around us and they were in danger of being cut off from the Empire if they remained here. We could no longer trade — their ships could not come here. With regret, they prepared to leave. We had, I admit, become to a degree dependent upon them. So we turned back to the Federation. We said, Help us, since you have driven away our allies. Of course, they replied. We will help you back to the dark ages. And for a turn of tides, we have watched them dismantle every forward step we have taken. At the last, we said, this is enough. We went back to our old friends the Klingons and said, what must we do to make it worth your while to stay? And we struck a new bargain. They must have more men here, there must be more trade at less favourable prices. All this we understood and agreed. Are you telling me that they have gone beyond that agreement, that once they feel safe, they will take more?”

“Yes.” Chekov looked guiltily at Eaye, who nodded for him to continue. “I think the Empire decided it made no sense to continue its original alliance with the Trask. And I suspect General Kress is a puppet for a group who see a use for this world only as a bridgehead for Klingon expansion in this sector, but they must act quickly, before the withdrawal goes too far. If they can persuade the Empire they have a secure base here, they will get the support they need to continue. But…”

“Yes?” The woman cocked her head and stared hard at him.

“I’m a… I was a Starfleet officer. I may be biased in my interpretation of Klingon behaviour and motivation.”

“After all these tides, you still will not interfere.” She sighed heavily. “Let us contact the Federation, Eaye.”

“Contact the Enterprise, Pavel. Tell Admiral Russell, or the Ambassador if he is sufficiently recovered, or Captain Kirk, that I wish to speak to him.” Eaye nodded towards the computer screens that lined the wall behind him. “Go on.”

His heart in his mouth, Chekov obeyed. The technology, like Liiz’s reader, was Federation circuitry in an unfamiliar shell. It didn’t take him long to find the correct settings to hail the Enterprise. There was no response. He rechecked the settings. Nothing. So either they’d gone or they weren’t receiving the signal for some reason. Power to the transmitter was on… Then he realised. “The Klingons are jamming us. I can’t get a message through. I also can’t tell if the Enterprise is still in orbit or not but the fact that they’re jamming suggests that she is.”

“We must contact them,” Eaye insisted, unnecessarily as far as Chekov was concerned. “What do you need?”

Chekov shook his head. “You don’t understand. Klingon equipment is thousands of times more powerful than yours…”

“Then we’ll use their equipment.”

“What?”

“Kress has communications in his office, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but I can’t get access to it. There are codes…”

“Someone must know them.”

“I don’t. And no one is going to tell them me what they are.”

“Get Kronor!”

“He doesn’t…”

The Duke turned on him angrily. “I know. But he may know how best to make a Klingon talk. You’re obviously too soft.” Eaye hesitated. “I don’t mean that harshly. But our future is at stake. We may have to shed a little Klingon blood.”

***

Kronor and his squad were sent to round up the Klingons who’d stayed overnight in the castle. This proved to be a mere score of men and junior officers, among them Taleek. The technician was brought under guard to Kress’ office.

Chekov had spent the intervening minutes examining the comm station in as much detail as he could. He suspected that attempting to turn it on without the correct codes would set off alarms on every Klingon vessel in orbit.

“Can it be done?” Kronor asked him when he arrived with the prisoner.

“In theory.”

“Well then, let’s see if we can persuade this son of dishonour to help us.” He dragged Taleek over to within spitting distance of the keyboard he usually attended so dutifully.

Taleek turned his head away contemptuously. Kronor hit him across the face. The Klingon merely scowled.

“He’s probably enjoying it,” Chekov pointed out. The ensign wasn’t. As far as he was concerned, the moment Taleek was here in the flesh he became simply a soldier doing his duty. He no more deserved to be beaten bloody for not revealing operational codes than Uhura would under the same circumstances.

“Pavel,” Kronor said, feigning patience, “how many minutes did you say it would take them to flatten the castle?”

“I know, but he won’t tell you anyway, so there’s nothing to be gained by being brutal. Maybe I can trip it…”

Kronor put a hand on his chest and pushed him away from the keys. “If you have to, Pavel. Wait a moment. Get Xeris, someone.”

A member of Kronor’s squad vanished out of the door.

“What do you want that freak for?” Taleek asked.

“Oh, you know Xeris, do you? I should have realised he’d have introduced himself to his heroes. Well, maybe he can do something for you.”

“Kronor, no…” Chekov could feel his skin crawling, as if it could get away from Xeris’ knife under its own power.

“Oh, yes. This is his big opportunity. Don’t try to deny him his moment.”

“You traitorous worm-spawn,” Taleek hissed.

Kronor slapped him across the face again. “I don’t know how this is done. Do we strip him and tie him down? Here, this desk will do. Find some rope, someone.”

By the time Xeris arrived, Taleek was ready for him, sweating, and strangely quiet.

“We don’t want to kill him, Xeris, we want him to talk, but on the other hand, time is limited.” Kronor dropped his voice to a whisper for the last part.

Xeris nodded and began taking a selection of knives out of a roll of oiled cloth. He glanced at Chekov, who had moved away from what had been his desk and was now the stage for what looked like a satanic ritual. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, he’s sure!” Kronor snapped. “Get on with it.”

The executioner picked up a knife, at random as far as Chekov could tell, and ran it down the mid line of Taleek’s torso. The Klingon laughed. His blood was thick and purple as it oozed from the incision. Xeris stared at the line his knife had drawn and traced with his finger the next cut that had to be made, diagonally out towards the left shoulder. Then he abruptly put the knife down. “I’m sorry, Commanders, I can’t do this.” He pushed Chekov’s chair away from the desk and sat down on it. “Not while he’s conscious…”

“And what would be the point if he weren’t conscious?” Kronor demanded angrily.

“It’s not your blood, you cowards! You deserve to see your planet crushed under the heel of the Empire! Offspring of maggots!” Taleek had gotten his colour back and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself taunting the Trask.

Kronor stepped into Xeris’ place. Seizing another knife he inserted it under the skin of the Klingon’s chest and began to flay him as if filleting a fish. Taleek went silent, then began to scream. The sound was as horrible as it was unexpected.

Chekov had to come forward to grip Kronor’s arm. “Stop it! Tell us the code, Taleek. You can live for three days like this… think about it.”

Taleek spat in his face.

“And when I finish flaying you, I’ll roll you in salt and let you watch while I stuff your skin with straw and send it home to your father,” Kronor added for good measure.

“The more pain, the greater my glory. As you’d know if you were more than a half-bred traitor. And you…” Taleek fixed fever bright eyes on Chekov. “…you haven’t the stomach for a clean kill, let alone torture. Don’t dare to pity me!”

Kronor pushed a short, thin bladed knife into the ensign’s hand. “You heard what he said, he wants more. Give it to him…”

“No. There has to be…”

“Pavel…”

Chekov looked up to see Sam at the door, wide eyed and flushed with excitement. “Sir… One of the Klingons had a communicator hidden in his uniform. We think he’s alerted his ship.”

Kronor swore under his breath.

Chekov was only relieved that there was no more time for torturing Klingons. He stabbed the knife into the wood of his desk and went to the comm station, switching on the power and inputting a number at random. Prepared as he was for the worst, he didn’t even blink when alarms started to sound. He was gambling that they wouldn’t want a saboteur to disable their communications by a simple attempt to break into them and he was right. Even while the station was screaming alerts he was hammering in a siren appeal for help to the Enterprise on the carrier wave of the Klingon alert signal.

“Have you done it?” Kronor breathed over his shoulder. “Because I think we’ll have company very soon.”

“Yes, get your men out of here. Get back to the Duke. Take him…” Chekov jabbed a thumb viciously in the direction of their victim. Abandoning the comm station, he began slicing through the ropes that bound the grinning Klingon, blunting Xeris’ precious, useless knives on the coarse hemp.

They went, Taleek slung between two men, still smirking at their apparent failure, the flap of skin hanging obscenely. Chekov tidied away the ends of rope from his desk and sat down in the chair, too rushed to feel sick but feeling it anyway. It was no good telling himself he’d taken no part in the torture. If it had worked, he’d have used the codes without hesitation. 

He’d hardly got his breathing rate down to a respectably anxious level when armed Klingons, bearing equipment that marked them clearly as a heavy assault force, began pouring out of an almost continuous transporter effect. Chekov had seen mass transporter usage on rare occasions but never with such speed and into such a confined space. The danger of technical or personnel errors in such circumstances was enormous. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the newcomers were well co-ordinated. They spilled out onto the parade ground, carrying the equipment for setting up force shields and heavy disruptor cannon.

One of the invaders, an officer, spared the time to notice Chekov. The barrel of a disruptor swung up to cover him. “Who are you?”

“Liaison officer to General Kress.”

“You set that off?” The Klingon gestured at the still resounding comm station. “Why?”

“The Duke has your men imprisoned. He’s talking with other local leaders, planning resistance to…”

“Resistance? What’s he planning to do? Throw sticks at us?”

The torrent of Klingons had slowed to a mere trickle. Whether Drak chose to arrive now because it was safer, Chekov could only speculate.

“We have erected force screens, Commander. We are in position to return fire.”

Drak nodded in acknowledgement of this report. “You set off the alarms?” he demanded.

Chekov nodded.

“And your wife and child? I can’t guarantee what’s happening out there.”

“As you said, Commander, I can do better.”

Drak smiled and nodded. “Good. Very good.”


	13. Chapter 13

“A message from the Fayzhal, Captain,” Uhura announced. “They want to know why we haven’t left orbit yet.”

“Don’t reply.” Kirk continued to sift through the early morning surplus of departmental reports his yeoman had just given him.

“Well, you could tell me. We’re not doing anything here.” McCoy had appeared, uncharacteristically, as early as the yeoman.

“We’re waiting for something to happen,” Kirk explained, not for the first time.

“Well, what, for Christ’s sake? They just want us out of the way so they can lower their shields and begin shipping stuff down to the surface, without having to look over their shoulders all the time.”

Kirk handed the reports back to his yeoman and gave the immediate problem his full attention. “I’ve been thinking, Doctor. It really doesn’t make sense for the Klingons to hang on so desperately to Keera. On the terms they’ve agreed with the Trask it’s going to cost them heavily for very little benefit. They have to be intending something else.”

“That isn’t their current strategy in the sector,” Sulu commented, judging from Kirk’s tone that the discussion was open to all.

“Not that we know. But if they’ve seen a way of maximising the return from Keera or using it to greater advantage… The problem with the Klingons is that you don’t just have to ask whether what they’re doing makes sense, you also have to take account of the current power play.” He stared pensively at the viewscreen. “And I really don’t appreciate getting caught in other people’s political strategies. Get me the Duke, Uhura.”

She didn’t need to glance down at her board, her fingers making the necessary adjustments from memory. But the response she got grabbed her attention quickly enough. The feedback felt like her teeth were fragmenting. “I’m sorry, sir. They’ve jammed us. I doubt if I can contact anyone on the surface, unless they’ve got very powerful receivers.”

“Now why would they do that?” McCoy demanded, turning to her station as if he could help. She lifted her hands to demonstrate her own lack of an explanation.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with them suddenly being so impatient for us to be gone,” Kirk mused. “They’ve been positively pleasant for days by their standards. What’s up now? Scan for any trouble down there, please, Mister… Mister Coles.” Spock wasn’t at his post yet and one of his staff was manning the science station, as Chekov normally would in the Vulcan’s absence. “Pay particular attention to the Duke’s territory.”

“Jim, are you going to do anything?” McCoy asked the question very quietly.

“Yes,” Kirk said out the corner of his mouth, taking the doctor completely by surprise. Russell had departed forty-eight hours earlier but he’d reserved his final lecture on the importance of maintaining an impartial stance for the transporter room on his departure. McCoy’s head was still ringing with it.

“What then?” McCoy pushed, “Given that doing anything is against orders and if Chekov is dead, it’s also stupid.”

“Ask yourself why we’re still here, Bones.”

“On the off-chance that…”

“Yes, and what if someone had wanted to make sure we’d still be here, long enough for the Klingons to get impatient and maybe jump the gun.” Kirk checked that McCoy was registering understanding before he turned away. “If Chekov’s still alive, he’ll give us an excuse to go down there. We have to trust him to open the door for us. Then we go and get him.”

“And if he can’t?”

“He will. Mister Sulu, I want you and a small security force to join me in the transporter room in five minutes…”

“Sir, the terminator is approaching Eaye’s headquarters and I register what might be an attacking force outside the castle.” Coles’ speech was a little fast and breathless, showing his nervousness at being here in a difficult situation.

“Get Mister Spock up here, please, Uhura. We may need him shortly.”

“Sir.”

“If someone is using Chekov to keep us hanging around, that still leaves him with the problem that he can’t ask us to break the Prime Directive by getting involved,” McCoy objected. “How come you can take him out now and you couldn’t earlier? Just because Russell’s gone, that doesn’t…”

“He knows it’s now or never. He’ll find something.” Kirk turned away from the screen to look at McCoy again. “He’s a Starfleet officer, Bones. He’ll get out of there…”

“What if he’s spent the last ten days sitting there thinking you’re the great James Kirk and you’ll get him out?”

Sulu finished handing the helm over to his relief and walked past the two men as if he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“When’s the deadline? When do we actually have to get out of here?” McCoy asked, not sure if Kirk really believed Chekov would come up with something.

“Fifty seven minutes, Doctor,” Uhura informed him.

“Whatever he does down there,” McCoy went on, his voice lowered to a whisper once more, “it’s still breaking the principle of non-interference, isn’t it? It’s just the same if you let him start something, or if you take the initiative.”

“Of course it’s not the same,” Kirk said sharply. “An officer alone, separated from his ship, without a full understanding of the situation? He’s entitled to try to get home, up to a point. He knows where the line falls, and he won’t cross it.”

“And neither will you?” McCoy pressed.

“Not unless I have to.”

Spock had entered the bridge on his all but silent feet and he now came to join the Captain and his Chief Medical Officer at the centre of the bridge. “In my opinion the fact that the Klingons have jammed all signals from the surface strongly suggests someone will be attempting to send such a signal. And why would someone do that if they didn’t want us to intervene in some way?”

McCoy shook his head in amazement. “Oh, come on, Spock. That won’t wash. That’s like…”

“I don’t propose the argument as a justification for intervening, Doctor. But I think we should expect someone to try to contact us, and I think we are entitled to interpret such contact as an invitation to intervene, if its meaning is unclear.”

“I wonder if the attack on Eaye’s castle is a local difficulty or something directly involving the Klingons,” Kirk mused.

“Traditionally, the Trask spend their winter months in inter-tribal conflict. This is probably the first skirmish of the season.” Spock made adjustments to the sensors to bring the situation around the Duke’s stronghold into sharper resolution.

“Sir…” Uhura started to report, then stopped and frowned. “A sudden burst of coded activity on Klingon channels and… a Federation distress code. On the same equipment, I think, but a Federation code.”

“Mister Spock, you have the bridge. Maintain — cordial relations with the Klingons, if you can, but we’re going in. McCoy, a doctor might be a good idea.”

“The doctor might have a good idea and stay at home,” McCoy retaliated but he followed Kirk dutifully into the lift.

As Kirk arrived in the transporter room, Spock was already reporting further developments. “Captain, there is a mass movement of armed troops by transporter into the Duke’s castle. You are about to beam into a battle zone. However, the Klingons almost certainly do not have the manpower to launch any major military exercise on the surface and their ships in orbit would be hard pressed to do much damage while defending themselves against attack from the Enterprise.”

“I’ll be careful. I know the Trask can’t reach us but we have more powerful transmitters. See if Uhura can’t penetrate the jamming and inform the Eastern Alliance, and all the leaders who belong to it, that the Klingons are attacking the Duke. Lay it on a bit thick, if necessary. We want them to protest.”

“You want Spock to ’lay it on a bit thick’?” McCoy demanded, mounting the platform where Sulu and two security guards awaited them. Another five armed men were standing by. “And how exactly do you intend to ’be careful’?”

“Follow us down immediately,” Kirk instructed the second party. “No one is to draw weapons unless I give the order, even if we come under immediate fire. Mister Scott, we want to be in the Great Hall of the castle. Do you have that pinpointed? And Doctor, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

They beamed into the percussion of gunfire but it was aimed out of the hall rather than at the newcomers. As they solidified several of the Duke’s men turned weapons toward them, then relaxed as they recognised someone they’d plainly been expecting.

The Duke hurried forward. “Captain Kirk, you got our message…”

“Your message?”

“Why, who did you think it was from?” The Duke didn’t wait for an answer. “We have come under unprovoked attack by the Klingons, breaking the terms of their treaty with the Eastern Alliance. They are jamming our communications, both with you and with other leaders. We request that you assist us.”

“Of course,” Kirk said, smiling bitterly at this proof that Eaye had kept Chekov prisoner as a means of providing an escape route if the Klingons turned unpleasant. He covered his annoyance by seeming to take an interest in the huddles of civilians at the far end of the hall, the measures being taken to overturn tables to provide cover. “But I think you may have left it rather too late to avoid casualties.”

“Believe me, Captain, I would have dealt with you earlier if I’d thought I had any prospect of bringing anyone else with me. I had to wait until the Klingons overstepped the mark.”

“I find it hard to believe you’ve been sympathetic to us all along,” Kirk countered, praying that the situation wasn’t becoming critical while he and Duke argued. He thought the gunfire was uncertain, as if there were no clear targets, and there was no answering whine of disruptors.

“Because I have not, Captain. I am simply a man who must decide whether to jump left or right when his goal is straight on.”

“Can you tell General Kress that you want to parley? I assume it is General Kress you’re fighting with.”

“I’ll send someone to signal we wish to talk.” The Duke raised a hand and immediately a young man ran up.

“My Lord, Kronor, Mardrak’s son has just joined us. The message was sent…”

“I know that.”

“Yes, my Lord. He reports two injuries to his squad. And Pa…”

“Yes?” the Duke interrupted.

“He didn’t escape with them. The Klingons have control of the General’s office and Kronor believes him to be a prisoner, or dead.”

The Duke looked straight into Kirk’s eyes. “No matter. Take a parley stripe, Trask permit the Klingons know it for what it is, and inform Kress that we wish to talk. If he will guarantee safe conduct I will bring a party of leaders to discuss terms with him. I think he will be hoping to obtain a humiliating climbdown from me in front of witnesses and he’ll take the bait. Tell him, if you like, that I’m hysterical with fear for my castle.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Jim, there are a fair number of wounded at the other end of the hall.” McCoy gestured towards the chaotic scene unfolding there. “I’m not sure some of those civilians aren’t injured. Can you spare me?”

“Go ahead, Bones.” Kirk turned back to the Duke. “I presume you intend me to come too. I should warn you, I’m not in touch with my ship and I can’t order down reinforcements. If it does come to an all out battle, we’re outnumbered on the ground and in orbit. Depending on what the Empire is prepared to put into keeping its hold on Keera…”

“Not much, I think. It appears that General Kress had plans for this sector. He was hoping to present Keera to the Empire as a cheaply exploited base planet. If he doesn’t fulfil that promise, he’ll have no backing.”

Kirk wasn’t sure he liked walking into the lion’s den on such a flimsy assurance of his safety. “Whose assessment is that?”

“Chekov’s.”

***

There were fewer injuries than McCoy feared. Those there were seemed more a source of excited one-upmanship than distress. A small girl with shrapnel splinters in her arm only started crying when the doctor hid the damage with a neat bandage. After dressing a dozen or so superficial wounds on the civilians, McCoy turned to the soldiers, where a local doctor was already fully occupied.

“Can you use some help?”

The woman stopped picking fragments of glass out of one man’s arm and looked up. “Why? Who are you?”

“A doctor. With Starfleet.”

“Yes. But I thought you didn’t interfere…”

“I don’t turn my back on casualties either. Where do you need me?”

The woman glanced round. “Everywhere. See for yourself.”

None of the men had been injured directly. The problem was flying splinters from disruptor cannon used on the buildings and a few broken bones and crushed hands or feet from falling debris. McCoy pulled out his tricorder and began checking everyone for shock and blood loss. The fourth patient he examined didn’t need such sophisticated instruments to set alarm bells ringing. He was pale and cold. When McCoy moved him away from the table that sheltered him, he realised the youngster had been lying in a pool of blood.

“Why did you leave this one?” he demanded over his shoulder.

The doctor came over. “He said he was okay, didn’t you, Sam? What’s the matter?”

McCoy scanned him. “There’s a deep wound, right between these two ribs here.”

“I’m all right,” Sam said stubbornly.

“No, you are not, young man. Help me turn him on his side. Nice and steady. I’ll give you something to stop the pain…”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

A hypo hissed into his shoulder. “Well, I bet that feels better, even so.”

Sam smiled involuntarily. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Now, let’s see if we can do something about this…”

“Please, don’t.” Sam put a hand in McCoy’s way.

“It won’t hurt, I promise. If I leave it, it will hurt far more later.”

“I don’t want you to do anything. Look…” The youngster sat up, and his face whitened as the pull on severed tissue overrode the pain control. “…I don’t want you to. That’s all. Leave me alone.”

“I’ll deal with it,” the woman doctor volunteered. “Some people are fairly strongly anti-Federation,” she explained for McCoy’s benefit, but Sam scowled at her.

“No, I’m not. That’s not the point at all. I just don’t want you to do anything. It’s up to me, isn’t it? Leave me alone.”

She stared at him in amazement. “Sam, it’s not a bad injury, but it will get worse very quickly. If you’ve punctured any organs, it could be really nasty. I don’t want to worry you, because you’ll be fine in no time if you let us treat it…”

“No.”

“Hold him down,” she instructed a couple of the nearby walking wounded.

Sam lashed out and hit the first assistant in the face. The second moved back, looking apologetically at the doctor.

She turned to McCoy. “Have you any sedatives?”

“Yes, but I don’t like forcing treatment on…”

“He can argue about it when he’s better, Doctor. He’s just a child. An hysterical child.”

“I’m not a child. I’m a soldier. The Duke said so only this morning. I wish you’d make up your minds.”

In McCoy’s judgement, Sam was anything but hysterical. He had a very adult air of someone rationally standing up for his rights. “Why won’t you let us help you, Sam?”

“If I die, it solves everything.”

McCoy nodded. “Okay, but this is not going to be a good way to die. Can’t we find an easier way to solve everything?”

Sam shook his head. “No. I’ve tried and the Duke… well, the Duke won’t let Pavel go. But if I’m dead he won’t have to stay. And Tess will be all right…”

“Pavel?” McCoy queried cautiously.

The Trask doctor moved in close to Sam with a damp cloth. “Here, let me at least wipe your face…” She clamped it over his nose and mouth, and after a few seconds of frantic struggling the boy collapsed.

“What was he talking about?” McCoy demanded, getting out of her way as she rolled the patient onto his front and pushed his shirt out of the way. The wound gaped dramatically. It was between the two lowest ribs on his right side.

“He’ll vastly improve his sister’s marriage prospects if he does die. Normally he’d inherit his father’s guild rights, but if there is no son, his sister’s husband gets them… not that I’d accept that as a reason for not treating him. There… ah, this is full of glass fragments. Can you do anything?”

McCoy handed her the tricorder and showed her the scanning image on the screen. “That’s the debris… there, if I turn up the contrast, it’s clearer… There’s no damage to any of the surrounding organs. He was very lucky. He said something about someone called Pavel?”

She shrugged. “That I don’t understand. He means your man, of course, but I don’t see how Sam being alive or dead makes any difference to the Duke letting you have him back. Do you think I’ve got it all out?”

McCoy pushed in closer and rescanned. “Probably, but I’d advise… I can treat the wound in ways that will prevent infection. Then you can open it up under better conditions in a day or so if you have to. Or we could treat him aboard the Enterprise. You mean Chekov is alive?”

“Yes, of course he is. Or at least he was, before this all happened.”

Sorting through the contents of his kit for what he needed to patch Sam up, McCoy tried to straighten his thinking. “Do you always dope uncooperative patients?”

She smiled grimly. “Today, I don’t have time to reason with them. Does that offend you?”

“No… under the circumstances, but I’d make sure I apologised when he wakes up.”

“Maybe you think I should have let him die? Particularly in view of what he was saying?”

McCoy noticed that she was watching his actions carefully. “Look, ma’am, I have to treat every patient equally. I can’t refuse to treat someone because of some consequence their recovery might have for someone else. I’d never know where I was. Anyway, he was probably confused. He was on the edge of being in shock.”

“Non-interference again?”

“I suppose it is, in a way.” McCoy finished cleaning the wound and began to fuse the layers of muscle, connective tissue and skin.

“Well, at least you use it against yourselves.”

“I don’t know. I don’t see how this kid being dead would mean anything for Chekov… I’m not sure he’d be too pleased himself if he thought I’d let someone die in order to get him back.”

“You’re right.”

McCoy swivelled round from doing a final scan of the injury and found himself staring at the Duke’s knees.

“You see,” Eaye continued, “I suspect that if he wanted to, your Ensign Chekov could make a very convincing case that he didn’t kill Rae, Em’s son at all. Sam here did. But Chekov isn’t prepared to push it because he knows what would happen to Sam if he did.”

McCoy stood up angrily. “And what would happen to Sam? We know the Barraggees are probably anxious for a little revenge…”

“What?” Eaye looked genuinely puzzled.

“They seemed keen we should know that this Rae was a favourite of theirs.”

“Rae? Rae wasn’t anyone’s favourite… Oh. Ah, Doctor, I’m afraid you misunderstood them. I doubt if they knew Rae from the bottomside of a barge, but your Chekov, now that was a different matter.”

McCoy looked from Sam to the doctor and back at the Duke. “Where is he now?”

“With the Klingons. They don’t know he’s one of yours. But…”

“…He’s probably dead,” McCoy finished for him.

The Duke shrugged. “It happens, during wars. It’s regrettable. But I wouldn’t have given him back to you anyway… And he occasionally gave me the impression that being here was rather worse than being dead.” Eaye smiled at McCoy’s furious scowl. “Shall we let young Sam die, so you can go and get him back? He may still be alive yet.”

“Why does anyone have to die?” McCoy demanded, sickened by Eaye’s games.

“Why did Rae, Em’s son have to die? Isn’t that the question? Everything else is just the law taking its course, surely? I could spare Pavel because he had no criminal intention. Sam surely did.”

“Why can’t you find out what actually happened, then?”

“They were both armed with automatic weapons, both have admitted they were shooting at Rae. We don’t know where the fatal bullet came from. Chekov has told me, he’s lying, of course, but that’s up to him, that he saw Sam at the time of Rae’s death, out of range of the victim. Sam can’t very well lie to me about where Chekov was, since we all know that. So what do I do?”

“You could use a lie detector, examine the bullet and determine which gun it came from.”

Eaye shook his head uncompromisingly. “But that’s all Federation technology, isn’t it, Doctor? You couldn’t possibly let us use that. It would be interfering.” His smile became rather smug. “And the end result of it all would be Sam’s death. Why didn’t you just refuse to treat him in the first place?”

McCoy knelt down and checked on the patient, trying to harden his heart. “Perhaps he just has to face up to the consequences of his actions. He seems willing enough to do that.” The boy was about sixteen, he reckoned, his face still smooth and downy.

“I agree. Perhaps Captain Kirk has to as well.”

With that unyielding response, the Duke walked away again. It looked to McCoy as if the messenger with the parley stripe had returned. Kirk and a small handful of the natives went into a tight huddle. Sulu had positioned the security guards around the hall and was using a tricorder, presumably to locate the Klingon forces in the castle.

“Doctor, this patient is bleeding badly too…” The woman medic sounded diffident about asking him to help but McCoy turned automatically to answer this new call on his skills.


	14. Chapter 14

Kirk suspected that Kress’ reaction to his arrival might just be to kill him, but on the other hand, the Klingon general had to be aware that an action like that would have the Federation thinking very hard about its willingness to let Klingon ships service a base here, so far into Federation territory. And if they had a whisper of the fact that the local population was no longer so sure it wanted a Klingon presence… He scowled as he picked his way through the rubble strewn corridors, knowing that he was probably being watched by Klingon troopers. The Trask were entitled to govern themselves as they pleased but if that meant changing allegiances every few hours, whether democratically or by whatever other means were traditional here, the only way the Federation could react was withdrawal and denial of access to the other side. And the result of that, for the Trask at present, would be disastrous. The Klingons had made them just dependent enough on advanced technology that their cities would rapidly fall apart. Traditional farming practices had been abandoned and would take generations to re-establish, so thousands, maybe millions would starve… The Federation would be turning its back on a catastrophe.

“Eaye, we have to agree some sort of long term relationship that isn’t going to be overturned the next time the balance of power changes. Otherwise, there’s no point me coming with you now.”

“You had that. And you tried to push us back into the dark ages. So naturally people who were losing their jobs, seeing their living standards fall, seeing their hopes disappointed, thought they’d rather give the Klingons another chance. And in the end we can’t hold back the force of what the mass of people want. You have to be a little more flexible, that’s all. After all, the Klingons have already done half the job for you. Once people know that they were planning to turn the Trask into a slave labour force…”

“That’s only what we were warning you all along.”

“But they didn’t believe it. The Klingons were warriors, just like themselves, or how they liked to think of themselves. The fact that no one has fought a real war on this world for generations, the fact that the sort of battles Klingons fight have their foot soldiers in explosives factories…”

“But can you convince people of that?”

Eaye nodded. “They’ve been heavy handed. They’ve tried to stop the seasonal battles. People will ask why. And I have enough information from Kress’ office to persuade the more intellectual that Klingon intentions were not at all benign.”

“How did you get that?” Kirk eyed their destination warily. A small group of Klingon officers were advancing across one corner of a massive gravelled courtyard to intercept them.

The Duke smiled. “Chekov’s been fairly busy. Kress thought he was grooming him up to be a puppet in charge of one of their facilities. It was he who sent my message to you, using their equipment. And I’m very much afraid he may have paid for it with his life.”

“Damn you,” Kirk said shortly.

The Klingons didn’t bother to disarm them, just let them realise that their escort in turn was heavily armed. At a little distance were further troops who could have swung their disruptors around and wiped out the party in the blink of an eye.

Inside the large office, Kress didn’t react at all to the two Starfleet officers in Eaye’s party. Presumably his sentries had already alerted him.

“So, Duke, you have broken the treaty and attacked my personnel. In self-defence, I have taken your castle, apart from mopping up your people in the great hall. If you order them to surrender, I will spare their lives. What do you say?”

“That there is no treaty. The Eastern Alliance is no longer the legitimate voice of the Trask.”

Kress looked more than a little annoyed. “Don’t be ridiculous. How can we do business with you if your governments last no longer than rainstorms? And what are these… these… What is he doing here?” The Klingon finally acknowledged Kirk’s presence.

“Answering a distress call, General.”

Kress sneered. “There was no distress signal. You simply observed the movement of large numbers of Klingon personnel into the castle and came to take advantage of the confusion. The Trask have thrown you out, Kirk. Why don’t you accept it?”

“They seem to want us back, but if you’d stop jamming local radio signals and let the Duke check the current position with what remains of the Eastern Alliance, I can call my ship and arrange my departure.”

“We were invited here, Kirk. We are the legitimate presence. You don’t like that, do you?”

“On the contrary, I was invited also.”

“How can you have been..?”

“Given that you were jamming the native radio capability? Well, I’m glad you admit it.”

Kress exhaled impatiently. “Commander Drak, I’m tired of this. I want Captain Kirk, and the Duke, dead.”

Instantly every disruptor in the room was aimed at Kirk and Eaye. Drak stepped forward. “Don’t be a fool, General. The Enterprise will already have sent for assistance. If they have any excuse to accuse us of exceeding our agreement with the Eastern Alliance, they’ll make it impossible for us…”

“Silence, Drak. My men will follow my orders. In the cross-fire of this unfortunately confused situation, no one is going to know who was to blame. And the lieutenant.” Kress gestured at Sulu. “As for the rest of you…” He hesitated over Em, the Marquis, the Barraggee and the woman, none of whom had said or done anything since they arrived in Kress’ office.

Kirk had a sudden, horrible conviction that there wasn’t a way out of this. They were outnumbered and the Klingons, alert and watchful, had only to raise weapons and fire. He’d walked into a deadly cul de sac. He’d done it because he’d had a small part of his mind on Chekov, instead of keeping all of it on the task in hand. Chekov better damn well be alive…

“Very well, General,” Drak responded, “but if you’re quite determined on this somewhat extreme course of action, can we do it to the best advantage?”

“What do you mean?” Kress snarled.

“You doubt my judgement on certain matters. This is an opportunity to put your mind at rest.”

Kirk glanced at the Duke, hoping for enlightenment, but Eaye merely shrugged his shoulders unhappily.

“Very well,” Kress agreed. Then he smiled. “It’s an excellent idea. Like most of your ideas, Drak. Like most of them.” He went over to the door that led into the barracks used by the Klingon forces. “Lieutenant!”

The call was answered, to Kirk’s surprise, by a native rather than a Klingon. At least that was his first fleeting impression. 

“General.” The young man stood smartly to attention. Kirk let his gaze run up from the tall, buttoned boots to the cropped hair. But in between, no doubt about it, was Chekov. The ensign didn’t show by so much as a glance that he recognised Kirk. He couldn’t afford to. Kirk silently vowed to murder Sulu if he even skipped a breath. He didn’t.

Drak walked over to one of the Klingon troopers and took his disruptor. Then he handed it to Chekov. “Kill the Duke. Then the ones in Starfleet uniform.”

As if sensitive to Kress’ distrust of his liaison officer, the remaining armed troopers turned their attention towards Chekov. Kirk seized his chance and grabbed a disruptor from the nearest, while Sulu had his phaser drawn and aimed at Kress’ heart before the General could react to the sudden reversal of fortune. In the same instant, Chekov thumbed his disruptor to stun and swept it along the rank of troopers.

Their formation collapse was a memory that would stay with Kirk as one of the highlights of his career.

Chekov glanced at his captain and Kirk snapped out, “Get over here.” The navigator’s answering hesitation was only momentary and before Kirk could react his focus had transferred to the Duke. “Sir?”

Eaye picked up disruptors for himself and Em. “Guard the door, old friend. We don’t want to be disturbed. Pavel, please check that neither of our — guests is armed.”

Chekov did as the Duke had instructed him.

Kirk scowled. Presumably Chekov was worried that Eaye might still turn round and demand Kirk’s life if the ensign broke whatever agreement they’d made. He forced himself to ignore Chekov as both Drak and Kress were silently relieved of knives and small hand disruptors.

“Thank you, Captain Kirk, for your alertness. I was beginning to be a little worried. And now, do you have any ideas as to how we can get the rest of the Klingon fleet out of our territory with as little bloodshed?”

“To start with, I’d like to use that comm system to contact my ship. Sulu, can you…

“It’s code protected, sir,” Chekov interrupted. “If the captain attempts to use it, he’ll set off alarms. They’ll know something has gone wrong down here.”

“Can you do anything about that?” Kirk demanded. “If the Duke will let you?” Irritation at this stupidity was beginning to show in his face.

Chekov looked uncomfortably at Eaye. “Not as such, sir, but…”

Kirk didn’t want Chekov’s help on Eaye’s sufferance. It made things too uncertain. But for now, it appeared to be the best he could hope for. “I’m sorry, Duke. If you would allow me to make use of Chekov’s skills for our mutual benefit, we can argue about who he belongs to later. Let’s not make the same mistake the General is bitterly regretting.”

Eaye nodded gravely. “Please, follow the Captain’s orders for the moment, Pavel.”

Chekov hesitated again, as if the pantomime bothered him too. Then he went silently to the comm station.

Drak was following this, looking puzzled. He laughed suddenly. “You gave me a Starfleet officer? No wonder he was so well-informed. I thought it was raw, usable ambition… I was beginning to think I’d have to stop believing you Trask were stuck in the stone age.”

Kirk continued to mind his priorities. “Commander Drak, you have about one hundred men in this castle. You will order them to surrender to me.”

Drak shook his head. “I see that our adventure on Trask is about to become an embarrassing disaster. They’d rather die in battle than go home in disgrace. As would I. You can kill me, Captain Kirk, but I won’t do a damn thing for you.”

“Can you do anything to get us in touch with the Enterprise?” Kirk asked Chekov.

“No, sir, but I can use the comm on its present setting to speak with the Klingon flag ship, the Fayzhal. I might be able to get them to switch off the jamming, or even more than that…”

“You don’t exactly look like a Klingon,” Kirk objected.

“I’ve dealt with the Fayzhal for Kress several times. They’ve never seemed to query it. They may be suspicious, but they won’t react immediately.”

“Okay,” Kirk agreed. “We’ll try it. Sulu, make sure the prisoners don’t try to intervene. And make sure all those bodies are out of sight…” He noticed the Duke looking rather stonily at him. “…With your permission, of course, Duke.”

“Of course,” Eaye replied.

As Chekov expected, the only channel he needed was already on standby. He paused for a moment as he recalled the sequence of actions that Taleek went through to open it and decided what to say. A moment later, the Fayzhal’s communications officer was on screen.

“Lieutenant?” the Klingon snapped.

“The General and Commander Drak are injured and unconscious. The Duke’s forces are pinning us down in the area around this location. We’re being slaughtered…”

The image on the screen switched abruptly to the Fayzhal’s captain. “What’s gone wrong?”

“The Federation has sent men armed with phasers and the Duke has called on reinforcements from other local leaders. We’re outnumbered and at a disadvantage because…”

The Klingon signed for silence. Chekov took the opportunity to cut audio and look at Kirk for approval or otherwise.

“Don’t go overboard on the details,” Kirk said, worried that if Chekov was caught lying the whole strategy would collapse.

“Their sensors can’t tell phaser fire from disruptor fire, sir. And while they won’t have detected a large number beaming down…”

“…someone’s troops are surrounding the castle, I know.”

The Duke looked daggers at the Barraggee and the Elder shrugged. “You had something that belonged to us, Duke. We thought it was time we got it back. Before it was too late.”

Chekov’s mouth fell open, but his attention snapped back to the comm station in time to be informed that the Fayzhal was withdrawing troops. “…If Kress had had the patience to wait until the Enterprise had gone, this might yet have worked. You say Drak is injured too?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Klingon turned away in response to information from one of his officers. “We are withdrawing troops and ships. The Eastern Alliance informs us that they have received intelligence on our long term plans for this planet and we are no longer welcome on Keera IV. Lieutenant, do you wish to leave with us?”

Kirk reflected that the offer was logical, if more considerate than he would have expected of Klingons. If Chekov had been the collaborator he was clearly pretending to be, he might have found himself in no small trouble once the Klingons were gone.

“Doctor Madeek is concerned,” the Klingon Captain explained. Whatever this meant, it plainly amused the Fayzhal’s commander and didn’t exactly please Chekov.

“I prefer to stay here.”

“You wouldn’t know anything about the disclosure of our plans, would you, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, I passed on every piece of information I could to the Duke, of course.”

“Commander Drak will wish he was dead, Lieutenant. He’s a fool.” The screen went dead and the Klingons in the room began to shimmer out of existence.

“They’ve turned the jamming off,” Chekov reported quietly.

Kirk pulled out his communicator and was in touch instantly with Spock. The Vulcan wasted no time on trivialities. “The Klingons are transporting personnel up from the planet in large numbers. Two smaller vessels have already left orbit. The Eastern Alliance has informed them that the Treaty is no longer effective, apparently due to…”

“Yes, we know that. We need to recall Vice Admiral Russell to renegotiate the terms of Federation aid to Keera IV. They require more assistance than we were giving. Otherwise, they may ask the Klingons back again just as quickly as they kicked them out.”

“I will contact him. Do you wish to return to the ship, Captain?”

“Not yet.” Kirk closed his communicator.

He glanced over at Chekov, unfamiliar in the Trask costume, with savagely short hair and several days growth of beard. He seemed about five years older than he had the last time Kirk had seen him, as if he’d lived through a good deal in the meantime. And he looked as if he’d forgotten how to smile. Kirk offered a whole-hearted reminder and the Russian’s face seemed to light up behind his grim reserve.

“You have to let him go, my lord,” said the quiet, elderly man who had been set to watch the door.

Kirk suddenly recognised him, looking more self-assured in his battle dress, and without the fresh strain of grief on his face, but still, unmistakably, the man who had wanted Chekov to pay for his son’s death.

Chekov looked uncomfortable. “Em…”

“Oh, don’t worry. Liiz will be fine. In thirty tides she can have your marriage dissolved for desertion. And I’m sure Varn will wait…” Em glanced at the Duke and shrugged apologetically. “He’s all right. Better than Rae, anyway. Even if he is a farmer.”

“Marriage?” Kirk couldn’t help asking.

“Captain, as I explained earlier, either I executed you for Rae’s death, or I held Pavel accountable under the Old Law. Under that Law, again, as I told you, he was dead. He took on Rae’s rights, duties and responsibilities. Including a widow and orphan. He isn’t Ensign Chekov any more, under local law. He’s Rae, Em’s son. He knows he’s my man, not yours.” Eaye glared at the Barraggee. “Whatever tribe he belongs to.”

“Well, I’m sorry if we’re breaking your rules, but he’s coming with me now.”

“Captain…” Chekov objected anxiously.

“I don’t think the Duke will insist on his right to execute me instead, not in the circumstances.”

“No, but…”

“You mean that in return for your assistance with the Klingons I’ve given up the right to my own law on my own planet?”

“I don’t deny your rights, Duke. I ask you not to insist on them.” Kirk walked over to Eaye. “But if you do insist…”

“Very noble,” the Duke responded ironically. “I wonder how sure you are that I won’t take you up on that. Perhaps you think I never had any intention of killing you? I would have, believe me.”

“I’m asking you to be generous. Please, give him back to us.”

Eaye shook his head. “Don’t credit me with generosity. The situation is a little more complicated than we thought. You see, we’re no longer sure that Pavel actually did kill Rae. It seems that one of my own men may…”

“Sam didn’t,” Chekov interrupted stubbornly.

The Duke looked at him, stern and cold. Then his expression softened. “He may have. Varn has also admitted that he was firing at Rae from the battlements at the time of the ambush, while Kronor, Mardrak’s son, has assured me that he would have killed him if he hadn’t been unarmed, and Fraden, whom you probably don’t know, but whose sister you met at the drumming, had taken a gun out of the castle that day to hunt him down. Undoubtedly, if things had continued as they were much longer, Liiz would have poisoned him. I have been receiving delegations of people trying to take responsibility for Rae’s death, one way or another. I’m not sure which I believe, if any of them, or why they have to tell me now — Elder…” He turned to the Barraggee. “…I don’t suppose you want to tell me that your people were trying to kill Rae, Em’s son, and the Federation party was unfortunately involved by accident? No?” The Elder pulled his small mouth into a tight, uncomfortable smile and shrugged. Eaye continued. “I really don’t think I can hold Pavel responsible. Or anyone else for that matter. The case is simply too confused.”

Chekov stared at him for a moment. “You mean you will let me go?”

The Duke nodded. “I have no reason to keep you here.”

Chekov closed his eyes and let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding for the last eleven days.

“If I can persuade you not to go right at this moment, I think you might go and see…”

“Chekov, you’re to beam up directly.” The moment the tension had wound out of the ensign, he looked exhausted. And Kirk didn’t like the way he was behaving around the Duke. The Trask nobleman had something, a charisma, that Chekov seemed to respond to.

“Sam has been injured,” Eaye continued. “He was refusing treatment. I think you should reassure him that dramatic gestures are uncalled for. Also, we have unfinished business for the next drumming…”

Chekov awarded himself a mental pat on the back for having known Eaye would do this. “Wouldn’t it be more convenient for everyone if I found Xeris and asked him to do it now?”

“Do what?” Kirk demanded.

“Nothing, Captain. I just wanted Pavel to know that when everyone thought about it, they realised they had only imagined seeing him strike one of the men under his command. Very imaginative people, the Trask.”

Chekov considered that he’d almost rather have been beaten than have Kirk told that he’d hit one of his men. But when he looked up his captain was smiling. “I can see you have a lot to tell me about the past few days.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kirk handed him a communicator. “Leave when you want. I daresay you’ve left a few loose ends. I’m sure Doctor McCoy will be busy for a while yet and the Duke and I have some matters to discuss.”

“Thank you, sir.” Chekov turned to leave and found his way blocked by the Enterprise’s helmsman.

Sulu caught hold of his arm and pulled him in close enough for them to talk without interrupting the continuing discussion between Eaye and Kirk. “Are you all right? Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I’ll be fine, thank you.” Chekov smiled tiredly. “No one is going to hurt me. Even the Klingons were not that bad…”

“No. They promoted you. Shame it isn’t transferable.” Sulu seemed unwilling to let him go. “They kept saying that you were dead.”

The ensign just smiled and shrugged, not sure how to respond to this. He reclaimed his arm. “I have to say good bye to some people…”

“Sure.”

***

The parade ground was hazy with smoke and as Chekov looked towards the main bulk of the castle, he appreciated the stark divide between ancient and modern warfare. The Klingons hadn’t really been very rough on the place but where they had used their disruptors, whole structures had simply collapsed in on themselves after withstanding centuries of more conventional warfare. It was reminiscent of a sand castle someone had been throwing stones at. He picked his way cautiously over the rubble into the great hall and stopped the first person in his path. “Where’s Sam?”

It was a man from another squad, blood- and dust-spattered but cheerful. “He’s over there with the rest of the injured. Eight’s shifting rubble in the North Court.”

The soldier continued with whatever errand he was on, leaving Chekov momentarily puzzled by the last piece of information. Then he realised. Of course, he was still presumed to be in charge of his own men. Well, that was Diek’s problem, for now. He looked over in the direction indicated and spotted McCoy, wielding a hypo and his best bedside manner.

“Doctor?”

McCoy dropped the hypo. He took his time over picking it up and was able to give Chekov a disapproving glare by the time his eyes had risen from the buttoned boots to the stubble on his chin.

“It’ll be good to see you once you’ve had a shave and got back into uniform.”

Chekov took no notice. He was going home and he didn’t care how gruff McCoy chose to be about it. “I’m looking for someone called Sam. He’s around sixteen…”

“Over there. I think he’ll be pleased to see you. He’s not speaking to me.”

Sam was conscious again and furious. He glared at McCoy, who’d come over to show Chekov the way.

“You have a visitor…”

When the boy realised who his visitor was he looked as if he wanted to laugh and cry and was stuck between the two. Chekov just sat down on the stone floor and hugged him, carefully avoiding the obviously bandaged parts. “The Duke’s letting me go. It’s all right. Thank you.”

“And what about… about Rae? What’s he going to do about Rae?”

“Nothing. There’s no need to worry. And look, if anything like Rae happens again, tell Liiz, or tell someone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What happened to you?” Chekov glanced down at the bandages.

“We were evacuating the living quarters nearest the parade ground, and something exploded. I think it was some fuel, or something like that. I caught some shrapnel.”

“The Duke said that you weren’t letting the doctors treat you…”

Sam scowled. “I thought if I… well, then there wouldn’t be any problem with you going.”

Chekov hugged him again, squeezing his own eyes tight shut. “I would have felt terrible, if they’d let you do that.”

“Well, they didn’t. They knocked me out. People just do whatever they like with me…”

“I’m sure they thought that you were confused. They were trying to help you…”

“Yeah, I bet Rae would have said that too…”

“Surely you can see there’s a difference?”

“Maybe… Yes.”

Chekov gave Sam’s hand a last squeeze and stood up, knocking against McCoy.

“Woah, there. I just want to make sure you’re healthy, while you’re here. Yes, yes, yes… you look fine. What happened to your back? And your arms?” The doctor made roll-up-your-sleeves gestures which Chekov ignored.

“It’s nothing serious. I’m perfectly well, thank you.” He didn’t mean to be short, but he couldn’t quite switch comfortably from being Sam’s commander to being McCoy’s dumb ensign.

McCoy shrugged. “I daresay it can wait then. Anything else?”

Chekov thought about it. “No, thank you, Doctor. Is that all?”

“For now.” Shaking his head, McCoy went back to his patients. “Ungrateful brat,” he muttered under his breath. “He might realise we’ve been worried…”

***

The top of the tower that housed the stairs leading up to Liiz’ room had been blasted and the roof — lead, slates and slabs of dressed stone too big for a single man to shift — had tumbled down the stair well. By the time Chekov got there the dust was just beginning to settle. The small panes of glass from Em’s window crunched under the soles of his boots as he climbed the last few steps.

“Liiz…”

She came to the door, cheerful baby in her arms. “I can’t find it.”

“What?” He looked past her into a nightmare. The floor of the room above appeared to have collapsed, bringing itself and various items of heavy duty furniture down into their previously neat apartment. “Were you in there..?”

“No. I wasn’t. I can’t find your button hook.”

“Are you both all right?”

“What do you care? I think I left it on the dresser, if you want to look.” She moved out of his way to let him into the room.

He shook his head. “No, I… It doesn’t matter that much. Do you need some help?”

“No. Why don’t you just go home?”

“Liiz…”

“Go away. This is nothing to do with you. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. We can cope.”

“Guilty? I don’t feel guilty.” He sighed. There was no point trying to communicate at this late stage. “Will you do something for me?”

“What? What could I possibly do for you? You haven’t wanted me to do anything for half a tide. Now you’re going, I suppose you think I should be upset.”

“I told Sam he should tell you if he gets… if he gets into any kind of trouble again. Is that all right?”

She sniffed disdainfully. “I’d do that anyway. You didn’t have to ask.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad I’m not putting you to any trouble.”

“And don’t show your face anywhere around here in the next thirty tides. If you do we have to start counting all over again.”

“You and Varn?”

“What sort of woman do you think I am?”

“I hope you will be happy.”

“You don’t care one way or the other,” she accused.

Chekov shrugged, stung by her bad temper. He’d felt almost fond of her on his way up here. When she didn’t say anything else, he turned to go.

“Hold on!” She pushed the baby into his arms. “Look after him for a moment.”

Tor at least looked pleased to see him one last time. Liiz reappeared with a heavy cloth bag and tipped it out onto the floor. “I think I put it in here…” Coins, beads and scraps of paper mixed with the dust and chippings.

“What?”

“Your button hook.”

“It doesn’t matter, Liiz.” Something on one of the pieces of paper caught his eye and he knelt down clumsily to pick it up, keeping Tor pulled in close to his shoulder. It was a fine line drawing, in black ink, of a handsome, rather arrogant looking man, not much older than Chekov himself. “Is this Rae?”

“Yes.” She snatched at it, then stopped herself. “Do you want it?”

Chekov shook his head. “Is there one of you?”

Rae’s likeness disappeared back into the bag and she began to sort through all the other pieces of paper, too fast for Chekov to see them. “There you are…” She was looking at one, but not holding it out for him to see. She took it in two hands as if to tear it down the middle. He plucked it out of her grasp with his free hand. She’d drawn — at least he assumed she was the artist — a moderately good self-portrait, except she’d made herself look rather softer and more approachable than he found her. He had expected the other half of the picture to be Rae, or maybe Varn, but instead it was himself. She’d taken some artistic licence. His arms were bare and she’d emphasised the scars of Drak’s knifework. He was smiling at her but nonetheless looking intensely sad.

“I did try, Pavel. I just never felt you wanted to be here. It wasn’t very… very flattering, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry.”

Liiz took the picture back and tore it in half. “There you are. And there’s your buttonhook.” She helped herself to the baby and landed an unexpected kiss on Chekov’s cheek. “Go and marry someone else.”

***

Chekov relaxed into the transporter as if it was a warm bath. His eyes were closed when he arrived on the Enterprise. When he opened them again Scott was smiling at him. “Is it that good to be back?”

The ensign took a deep breath of filtered air. “Yes… no, better than that. What time is it, please?”

“Mid morning… ten days since we lost track of you. Eleven days as far as you’re concerned.”

Chekov’s puzzled look cleared as he stepped down off the transporter pad. “Of course.”

“Doctor McCoy said I should send you straight down to sick bay…”

“Can’t he even say hello to anyone first?” Uhura was hovering in the doorway, smiling broadly. “That is, if you talk to women like me now you’re married…”

“It wasn’t… I wouldn’t say I was married.”

“No. Just there long enough for the honeymoon. I might have known.”

“Lieutenant, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that at all. I killed… I thought I had killed her husband. She had a baby son…”

Her face went serious. “Pavel, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it was not so bad,” he said quickly, since her concern was out of all proportion to how he now felt himself. “She wanted her husband dead, but she thought her lover had killed him, so she was quite pleased that I…”

“This sounds like French farce.”

Chekov sighed then conjured up a half-smile. “It felt like Greek tragedy.”

The transporter whined behind him and he turned to see Kirk and a couple of the security guards returning from the planet. The Captain was talking to Uhura almost before he’d finished materialising. “Do you have an ETA yet for Admiral Russell, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. Seventeen hundred hours tomorrow. But he’s given you a free hand to deal with the situation.”

“Yes. Spock told me.” Kirk waved the guards out of the room. “Chekov, come here.”

The ensign glanced nervously at Uhura and obeyed. Kirk had to react somehow, sooner or later, to the fact that his navigator had disobeyed orders.

“Captain, I could not have let the Duke do what he threatened…” he said, trying to pre-empt Kirk’s criticisms.

“I know. But if you knew that someone else might have killed Rae…”

Chekov took a deep breath. He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to explain this to anyone, because he was so mixed up about it himself. “There was someone else who might have been responsible for Rae’s death, one of the members of my squad. It would have been treated as murder. They would have killed him.”

“What about the Prime Directive? Presumably he’d have been properly tried? And wasn’t he taking advantage of you, hiding behind our involvement?”

“No. Rae was… dishonourable, and brutal. Sam had as much reason as anyone could have to kill someone but I wasn’t even sure that he did kill Rae. He was just willing to take the blame, because… Well, I don’t know why, really. I was responsible for him. And he… he looked up to me. I couldn’t take advantage of that and use it…”

Chekov tailed off to an embarrassed silence.

“You couldn’t use it to do what you knew was your duty, to get safely back to this ship?”

“No, sir. I couldn’t. I’m sorry, and I see that I was wrong, but…”

“No, you weren’t wrong. You may not have been strictly right either, but you weren’t wrong. You put the safety of your Commanding Officer and your men and the good name of the Federation above your own interests. And then you used your best judgement on which of those three had to come first.”

“I tried to. If I’d had a better idea of how things worked, of what they expected…”

“It still wouldn’t have been easy. And something else…” The captain put an arm round Chekov’s shoulders and squeezed hard, just above Drak’s knifework.

“Sir?”

“Don’t ever, ever believe we wouldn’t have come back for you.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

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